I'm not a metallurgist, but that sure looks like a physical failure of something not suited to task.

 

Perhaps we should leave this to a metallurgist or engineer to decide and try to keep to the facts?

 

Thanks for sharing this video, right away I had a bad feeling about this a group known as "Vehicle Villains" sounds a bit shifty to me! Anyway, a very somber start, with a lot quiet talk about it being a mystery as to how this could happen, then talk about hard use on the clutch and transmission, and eventually the reveal about the strut tower, but nothing about taking any responsibility for it or what might have happened while in his ownership. As we were about to find out and although this may have finally failed during a normal drive on the street, there is a video on YouTube that clearly showed how this car was treated and how it did have a significant off track moment specifically a 360 pushing the side where the strut let go heavily into the gravel very hard, you could see the video tilt as the car lifted!


Imagine the sound of a horn, then say the word loudly: FAIL!

Continue to watch the video past the spin and you will hear them talking about how hard a life this GT4 has had (13:20) and how much gravel was thrown up into the suspension, there is also a shot of the right front tire, looks like it took a lot a gravel too, interesting how the video outside of the dealership shows an almost pristine wheel, I wonder if it was refinished or replaced to hide the track incident? And for those interested here is a third installment about the suggested repairs:


In many ways the third video was the most interesting regarding this car, we now find out that the wheel is in fact damaged as well from the impact as well. The repairman pointed out that one of the strut mounting bolts cracked the area around it indicating that it was the start and then enough pressure was put on the strut tower to break it further. Note that they did not tell him about the off-track episode! The video guy pressed the repairman about why this could happen and how unique it was to the GT4, his responses were very good, he said other vehicles from other manufacturers have shown similar issues like the C63 AMG and R8. The video guy mentioned his BMW and the the repairman talked about even those that use steel in this area have come in with deformations in the mounting area, the difference is that the aluminum breaks if pushed hard enough whereas steel would deform and bend. I think one good thing about this is that the aluminum tower section can indeed be removed and replaced using the appropriate repair techniques for bonded frame sections.

So in summary a street car was slid off into the gravel at track speeds putting significant pressure on the right side strut tower, easily enough to be the cause of the damage, as for warranty, in the video they say Porsche consider the cause was an "external factor or external influence" (1:35), I would tend to agree. Still the owner and video guy continued to call out Porsche for this and not owning up to how the car was abused...

 

Great observations @Westcoast !

 

So going into gravel means expecting this at any time is reasonable. That for all makes and models? How many non GT 911s, Caymans, Boxsters etc have this issue? Shirley more total examples have gone into the gravel? Yes GT cars may get tracked more per capita, but there's a LOT more non GT Porsches and many are tracked and for a much longer timeframe so this should be an across the board issue, right?

And you took a very aggressive implied tone trying to call out people with these concerns, yet I mentioned that this particular example may indeed have been the result of previous thrashing by the previous owner tho was hard on the clutch (completely irrelevant issue other than purely corollary speculation on your part, but yes, theoretically possible).

So this must also be the case with all the other examples, right? Driver error and misuse, which for some reason is systemic to the GT4 more so than any other modern Porsche example? Including other caymans, many, many of which statistically have to be thrashed around tracks and go into gravel?

I appreciate you taking the Porsche advocate perspective. If this was one example then who cares. But with several examples in a relatively very small number of cars, most of which are bubble wrapped Sunday cruisers anyway who would never experience that issue even if 100% were subject to flaws in design, materials, workmanship and/or QC even in theory, is it then reasonable to say that what strongly seems to be a disproportionately GT4 issue is really only a GT4 driver systemic problem but not other models of Porsche track systemic problems?

And with $20k+ repairs on the line plus likely massive diminished values, I can't see this ever being covered by warranty even in theory, let alone a recall/repair of every outstanding model. So if it's an issue, and it really seems like it is, it looks like every owner will simply own it if and when it happens. Hopefully the aftermarket offers both fixes and preventative measures because I doubt the manufacturer will but who knows.

Fun rowing the gears though I bet. For the Shmees of the world they either don't care and can afford to throw it away or more likely Porsche would simply pacify them by whatever means necessary to keep them buying every single GT model they make. But for the average Joe even one example of this that isn't driver fault would be a complete disaster.

 

Let's not compare apples to oranges, non-GT cars do not have the same suspension as the GT4 so let's focus on the GT4 at this time as it has a suspension unique to that car that includes not only with higher spring pressures but possibly a shorter suspension travel as well, the repairman commented that this may contribute to the failure. As I said at the onset, so far I have not found a failure that did not involve an external factor or influence, but by all means lets keep looking!

Take your car to the track and you may well break parts, race teams do all of the time, why anyone would think that the same wouldn't apply to them or expect that any manufacturer would warranty a street car for track use simply makes no sense to me.

 

That's kind of a dodge. Obviously the unique GT4 has a unique GT4 suspension. No doubt it's tighter tolerances higher spring pressures etc. that's not the drivers problem. Especially with a self proclaimed bad *** track grade overbuilt over engineered car sold as being able to handle whatever tracks throw at cars more than the average sports car used on tracks.

At the VERY LEAST it should still be able to easily handle loads and stresses that non GT Porsches can. Where are all of those issues?

If the GT4 is now some delicate masterpiece that carries some unique risk of potential structural failure in exchange for boy racer lap times 99.9% of their buyers will never touch, then they should be sold stating as much. But therein lies the rub; that can't be possible without saying the incredibly robust track duty dedicated streetable race machines aka the numbered GT lineup isn't nearly as bad *** as claimed. Cool flex, let's see if they throw the GT moniker under the bus to plaster over this issue. Pretty sad if so but I'd respect the candor at least.

Non GT caymans 911's and Boxsters are tracked all the time, go over every red and white raised edge and slide into the gravel sometimes. This should be a brand wide issue but it's not. Why not? Oh, it's that super tight high sprung suspension they put in a Cayman body? IF that was the reason, then that would prove the platform as designed wasn't ready for it, or worse, that it could have been made ready but they just didn't for whatever reason.

No excuse for something sold and badged as a true GT car. Not from this brand. If the suspension was too much for the car it shouldn't have been used.

 

You are suggesting a fundamental design flaw in the GT4, when in fact strut failure has been very rare. You would have more of a point if the failures occurred more frequently.

In fact the very example you picked to demonstrate your bias has been debunked as the driver clearly has been abusing his GT4, and the mechanic they interviewed actually said strut failures happens to all cars when pushed beyond limit.

 

So non GT 911's Caymans and Boxsters have strut tower failures? And I just posted that vid to show what it was. You can try to throw the baby out with the bath water if you want to, but where are all the non GT strut tower failures? If the foundation of your argument is that that guy (or the previous owner) abuses the car beyond what essentially any 6 figure track star reputation car could handle, then that has to be the case for all GT4 strut tower failures aside from massive front end accidents etc.

There's several out of a very small sample. The consequences to the owner are massive, expensive and possibly dangerous. So they all abused their cars. Gravel kills bad *** track cars etc. Cool. Where's all the shattered strut towers on all the other tracked modern Porsches with orders of magnitude more track hours than the small GT4 sub sample?

But it doesn't matter anyway. For every customer who avoids getting one, hundreds of more line up regardless. So aside from potential high profile safety issues (hopefully that never happens) they'll sell as many as they can physically make for the entirety of the run. If somehow it's just a 981 issue and the 718 is immune, then it really doesn't matter.

 

There is a tacit understanding that GT cars are used on the track. That’s part of their appeal. They should be durable enough for recreational track use..

However, even when the fail occurs on public roadways, it appears that Porsche will not cover a strut tower failure. Potholes and imperfect road surfaces are a fact of life in many areas of the country. If the GT3 and GT4 cannot tolerate the repeated shocks typically encountered on these roadways, then Porsche needs to figure out a fix sooner rather than later.

Come on Porsche, be better than Boeing. Figure out the strut tower fail it out before someone really gets hurt.

 

This too will be my first Porsche. And I'm not ready to pull my deposit, but I've been soaking up all the posts on this strut tower issue. I can imagine where a hard hit on a track spinoff could easily have over-stressed the tower in the above-posted video. As an attorney, I'm more interested in the strut tower failures, if any, from original owner vehicles who have never tracked their GT4, and only have had maybe the occasional pothole impact. I get the argument that these are track-oriented high performance vehicles and some thrashing should be expected. I mean, look at the launch video. It shares a close resemblance to some kind of high-budget Gymkhana Ken Block production. What constitutes "normal" or expected driving habits for this kind of vehicle could be a legal question. But, I think you would have to have a better test case than the Vehicle Villain incident.

 

Keep in mind Porsche has apparently softened the suspension of the 718 GT4 compared to the 981 GT4. They probably had to since they gave the Spyder the same suspension. Good for the GT4 more so than the Spyder except for bragging rights to those who think that's important, which it isn't. Whereas Porsche may not have beefed up the strut tower, the suspension softening could have the same positive result for the GT4. 981 Spyders didn't have this issue with their mechanical X73 suspension setup, but of course don't have measurable track miles comparatively either. Now we could see tower issues for both new cars if you take in the typical belief from 981 GT4 owners, me not included, in that the shocks are bottoming under heavy load causing tower fatigue. With a softer suspension, the bottoming could actually increase unless the new controller is better in keeping loads under control. I tend to think the shocks aren't bottoming on 981 GT4s, and the cause has more to do with abuse and/or PASM controller settings. No one has proven bottoming to my knowledge from normal use. Pot holes can certainly cause a lot of stress from both instant unloading immediately followed by heavy loading possibly including bottoming. I also think the 981 GT4's PASM controller doesn't help in that it tends to disallow normal travel over high frequency bumps and allows too much travel under hard braking, which causes greater forces to the towers than if the opposite were the dampening factors. DSC's sport controller helps with this. It also seems that all Porsche PASM controllers haven't been very good across all PASM cars and DSC for one has been able to improve upon the dampening characteristics with great results. If the 718 GT4/Spyder controller has just as much margin to improve it, plan on being one of the first to get one. It sucks spending so much money on a new car knowing Porsche compromised in some areas causing the immediate need to improve something. I'd do that before a new exhaust, assuming the controller is crap just like all the PASM controllers which have come before it.

 

This is my interest as well, failures for car that are not track toys, those that fail under normal 'street' use and yes that may include poor quality roads and yes even pot holes! I am looking for facts not hear say, pointing at other vehicles does not help to determine the real extent of the problem, is it isolated to tracked vehicles or are there confirmed examples of street only GT4's that have had a strut tower failure.

While we discuss these cars I see no point in talking about why people buy them, by this I mean all of the comments about being a track weapon or some other such description, they are street cars and have no warranty beyond that use, you can take to the track but as far as I know the manufacturer's warranty stops at the gate. If you have an official statement that Porsche will cover cars used in timed racing style events then I welcome anyone to share it with us, otherwise let's leave that alone for the purpose of the thread.

Research is king, so if you can't prove it or the information is incomplete then why share it? I think that those that are really interested are looking for a solid picture of not only the magnitude of the problem but what will cause it, we know overstressed components will break but with the confirmed failures so far were these street only cars or track toys? To be clear, all confirmed failures are of interest so as garner a complete picture.

 

Keep up the good work. I’m enjoying both ides of the discussion. I’m not an engineer. But how much force is needed to do a 360 in a gravel trap? What would that equate to as a mph side impact? I can only imagine that had he gone straight through the trap into the wall it would likely be even more expensive to fix.

 

Watch some Nurburgring crash videos on YouTube and strut tower failure upon off-track excursions would be the least of your worry as entire cars are often mutilated. I've been there many times and have seen exotics balled up in heaps. Until you're paid to drive a car someone else owns, be prepared for harsh results which can happen in a millisecond. Most Nürburgring lap times are set with a margin of safety. In other words, drivers don't push the car to the absolute limit. The first order of business is to keep the car you own on the track.