Fully Spec'd 4S or Base Turbo?

[Kingske]

If the choice was purely a no-config Turbo vs 4S, I'd easily pick the 4S as there are far too many options missing that should be standard, such as parking cameras.

I started with a £100k budget, so went for the 4S and managed to sneak it up to £111k. Even at that price point, nearly £30k over base, I was considering the resale value so considered a Turbo for £20k more. In the end I ended up with a specced-exactly-how-we-wanted Turbo just because of circumstances, but I don't regret it at all. In fact, that's not entirely true - I regret not getting a Turbo S, so have ordered a MY2022 Turbo S.

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[Miwa]

I'd say get the car with the options you want, and if it requires going 4S to meet the budget, so be it.

In 2011, I bought an R8 off the lot because it was being discounted. It was missing a lot of options I would've liked to have, and I regretted not having them almost the whole time I had the car. I sold it after only 18 months. After a short stint with a 981S Boxster, I bought a 2nd R8, and this one had all the options I wanted, and I still miss that car today.

Some small stuff you can forgo and only have a bit of regret, but spending Taycan money and not getting all the luxury and aesthetic options you want is crazy, IMO.

Given the looong wait for the Taycan, I had plenty of time to budget in for all the things I wanted. It's different for people today, as you can just find a dealer somewhere with allocation and order!

 

[Mike in CA]

Counter intuitive opinion: Turbo power is MORE usable than 4S. Because you can actually feel the kick at highway speeds, where it’s safer. 4S only feels outrageously fast on local roads, where it’s usually not safe to use.

Tay Tay, respectfully, I'll just say that during my extended freeway test drive of a 4S I was able to effortlessly pass other vehicles and even very brief applications of full throttle resulted in 90+mph speeds. It convinced me that a 4S met all my requirements for acceleration in a road car.

I suppose a Turbo would have even more "kick" and get me to super-legal speeds a bit quicker.....but safer?

 

[faroutinNM]

Each dealer is allocated different build slots, so you could try somewhere else. In January, after I discovered my 4S was pushed to Q3 instead of Q2, another member here pointed me to the new Norwich branch with a March build slot for a Turbo. Out of courtesy I told Cambridge I was looking to cancel and move, but they then let me know of a last minute cancellation for a February build for a Turbo. And here we are - they delivered as promised.

I had a similar experience here with Albuquerque vs North Scottsdale, AZ. My in-town dealership, Albuquerque came through shortly with my "Feb/March" Turbo slot (Stuttgart dates, without trans-Atlantic shipping time needed, of course), and I'll be picking it up here next week. I would have been fine with a Scottsdale-Albuquerque trip, and they were willing to drive it here to deliver it, but I was willing to bend the schedule a week or two to stay with my preference for supporting local business. My only hurry is I want to drive it right now because I'm primed for it, and it's just a few days away.

 

[Vim Schrotnock]

I've always been of the opinion its better to go upscale where most of the options I want are standard. If this is the case with your build, then fully optioned 4S vs lightly optioned Turbo may be close to a wash if you look at overall cost of ownership. Let's say you spent $30K on 4S options for a total of about $135K, and $10K on Turbo options for a total of $160K so that you've got basically the same feature level on both cars. The total difference in price is then about $25K If you're keeping the car for 4+ years, then I'd say definitely the Turbo. Any options you have on either car will be worth $0 at resale, so if you have $30K options on the 4S and $10K options on the Turbo, you're 'saving' $20K of option depreciation. Then I believe the Turbo will maintain it's value somewhat better than the 4S, just because it's a bit higher end and more desirable. That could mean another $5K or so, and if you look at the total cost after sale, the two could be reasonably close. Plus, you've been driving a Turbo for 4 years...

 

[Tay Tay]

Tay Tay, respectfully, I'll just say that during my extended freeway test drive of a 4S I was able to effortlessly pass other vehicles and even very brief applications of full throttle resulted in 90+mph speeds. It convinced me that a 4S met all my requirements for acceleration in a road car.

I suppose a Turbo would have even more "kick" and get me to super-legal speeds a bit quicker.....but safer?

Respectfully, please don’t misquote me. I said it’s safer to accelerate quickly on the highway rather than local roads. Do you disagree?

You had a test drive. It used to feel quick to me too. I got used to it, probably the lack of sound and fury has something to do with it. A lot of others here reported trading up.

 

[Mike in CA]

Respectfully, please don’t misquote me. I said it’s safer to accelerate quickly on the highway rather than local roads. Do you disagree?

You had a test drive. It used to feel quick to me too. I got used to it, probably the lack of sound and fury has something to do with it. A lot of others here reported trading up.

It wasn't my intention to misquote you.

You did say that Turbo power was safer and more "useable" on the freeway than 4S power was on local roads. In terms of whether I agree with that or not I think traffic and road conditions are important factors. From slow speeds on an open country road 2 or 3 seconds of full acceleration in a 4S or Turbo can be experienced reasonably safely. At freeway speeds with surrounding traffic 2 or 3 seconds of full acceleration in a Turbo especially could put you close to triple digits which I would not consider safe. So I guess my answer would be, "it depends".

You're certainly right that familiarity with speed tends to diminish it's impact. At some point, one just has to reasonably decide when enough is enough and that's a subjective decision.

Anyway, my apologies if I misunderstood the point of your original post.

 

[dragcity]

Each dealer is allocated different build slots, so you could try somewhere else. In January, after I discovered my 4S was pushed to Q3 instead of Q2, another member here pointed me to the new Norwich branch with a March build slot for a Turbo. Out of courtesy I told Cambridge I was looking to cancel and move, but they then let me know of a last minute cancellation for a February build for a Turbo. And here we are - they delivered as promised.

I did start calling other dealers to check if they had allocation but no luck. Might just go through the list and check them all. Norwich next

 

[feye]

all of them.

That's right, no mercy for these T fanboys.

 

[Mouse House]

Here in CH it was would have been an extra 44k CHF to get a Turbo in the same spec as my 4S. Really not worth the extra for the kind of roads I drive on.

One of the clever things Porsche does with their pricing is put options that you "need" (and should really come as standard - like painting the f'ing rear view mirrors) close in price to things you want. Then once you're clicking it seems reasonable to add a few more things to the spec....

 

[TomC]

I did start calling other dealers to check if they had allocation but no luck. Might just go through the list and check them all. Norwich next

Best of luck, buddy - I hope you find somewhere. If you’re like me, once you have your mind set on something, it’s hard to let go of it. I know I’d have had slight issues of regret if I actually kept with a 4S, regardless of how illogical the differences are.

I can be rather frugal with money sometimes; I recall many-a-time where I’ve gone to extreme ends to get cheap flights via ridiculous routes and huge layovers. I remember adding 40 hours to our trip to get home from Sydney a few years ago as there was no way I was paying £15k for two one way flights. There’s a big difference between something being affordable and justifiable. Yet most of my frugalness is for experience based activities. I probably wasn’t happy with myself at the time of doing those layovers, but I don’t regret any of them as they’re over and done with soon enough. When it comes to buying something like a Taycan it’s a long-term decision and I only regret what I didn’t add to the spec.

If you can afford it, get it.

 

[TomC]

You must be Porsche's Customer of the Year.

Or as my wife would say: idiot of the year.

 

[rdjalexander]

Hey guys, one thing that may be worth mentioning here is the method of finance / residual value of the resulting car.

I had exactly the same conundrum and had more or less decided on a 4s, but when running the numbers through the finance people the Turbo was actually £6 less per month than my well sorted 4s even though the Turbo was £6k more expensive, simply due to the fact that you don’t get anything added to your RV for options and a Turbo will always be worth more than a 4s

Of course, it makes a big difference what options you are talking about adding but for me, everything that I was going to add to the 4s was either included or cheaper when you arrived at Turbo - clever Porsche.

In the UK at least, if you wanted Mission E wheels this means a 3k upgrade to PCSB which is standard on Turbo, as is PDLS, Bose, cloth headlining etc etc.

 

[dragcity]

Hey guys, one thing that may be worth mentioning here is the method of finance / residual value of the resulting car.

I had exactly the same conundrum and had more or less decided on a 4s, but when running the numbers through the finance people the Turbo was actually £6 less per month than my well sorted 4s even though the Turbo was £6k more expensive, simply due to the fact that you don’t get anything added to your RV for options and a Turbo will always be worth more than a 4s

Of course, it makes a big difference what options you are talking about adding but for me, everything that I was going to add to the 4s was either included or cheaper when you arrived at Turbo - clever Porsche.

In the UK at least, if you wanted Mission E wheels this means a 3k upgrade to PCSB which is standard on Turbo, as is PDLS, Bose, cloth headlining etc etc.

That's exactly what happened to me although I wasn't getting quotes for the monthly's being the same, which finance broker are you using?

 

[rdjalexander]

That's exactly what happened to me although I wasn't getting quotes for the monthly's being the same, which finance broker are you using?

I financed mine via Lombard in the UK

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