seahack

Greetings. I am considering ordering a new 718 Cayman GT4. For those of you with experience, I have some "newbie" questions about the car:

1. Is every driveway, speed bump and pothole a hassle?
2. How much scraping is there with the front lip?
3. How flexible is the front lip if it does scrape? Does it crack and break off?
4, Have you ever replaced the front lip?
5. How is rearward visibility with the fixed wing?

Please share your experiences. Thank you.

ExMB

delete

arcamalpha

1. Is every driveway, speed bump and pothole a hassle?

sloping driveways do tend to lightly scrape the splitter but nothing alarming. Same for speed humps. Potholes no worse than any other car.


2. How much scraping is there with the front lip?

quite frequent mild scuffs.

3. How flexible is the front lip if it does scrape? Does it crack and break off?

it’s rigid unlike some of the earlier GT cars. I imagine it would break off before the PU was damaged though.


4, Have you ever replaced the front lip?

i very much doubt anyone has needed to yet.


5. How is rearward visibility with the fixed wing?

not great-it runs right across the middle of the view!

Please share your experiences. Thank you.

seahack

Cheers. Thank you very much for your responses.

I am a Cayman guy and I love the new GT4. I am "on the list" for one at my Porsche dealer and I am a little bit anxious about the above issues. I am trying to figure out whether to pass or go for it.

mithiral67

With care, I never scrapped the front of my 981 gts. Unless you live some place that you are regularly scraping the front of a base/s/gts cayman, I am not sure the more extreme gt4 is a huge problem. But you never know. I wouldnt make it a deal breaker unless I knew I couldnt drive it regularly where I want because of it. Then again, if the gt4 has this problem, most performance cars in this price point will have similar issues unless they have a lift kit.

arcamalpha

The Gt4 has a significantly shallower angle of approach than most cars including the non-GT caymans. It has quite a long overhang, particularly in the middle, and obviously lower than average.

if you’re unsure find someone with a 981 Cayman GT4 to try for you and then allow a bit more room as the 718 GT4 has a longer overhang.

RyuBraska

Just to add on the 4th point, I have been told by my SA that the lip is designed to be easy to replace, and is not too expensive (for a Porsche part). Doesn't necessarily mean it will need to be replaced, but good to know.

seahack

Thank you. My current car is a 718 Cayman S with PASM (10 mm drop). I am very careful with it and I have no issues with scraping.

seahack

Thank you. Apparently, the lip is intended to be sacrificial.

GTChamp

Glad they made the lip cheap. If you ever go to NASA wheel to wheel or time trial track days, you'll see that the REAL racers use the cheapest splitter materials possible, usually just plastic. I even saw a Honda challenge guy break his plastic splitter on a berm, run to Home Depot, and 2 hours later: plywood splitter. The reality is: splitters break on smooth tracks -- they're definitely not meant to last forever on the street.
^This is also why I've questioned ever getting carbon fiber splitter and front lip on a street car, will just make the car too fragile / worrisome to drive.

ajw45

I'm not so sure about that. In the 981 GT4 the front spoiler lip was a skinny black poly part just around the leading edge. On the 718 GT4 the whole bottom is all one piece that looks similar to the GT2rs. The GT2rs piece has been known to break (rigid) and I think list price is like 750 euro...

seahack

I was just looking at "Suncoast" Porsche parts online. Suncoast offers a replacement spoiler lip for the 981 GT4 for $340.

GeoJoe

I just replaced my front lip on the 981. Easy job. Two torx screws and you just pull that bitch off. New one snaps in place. 20min job tops.

Old one
Attachment 1344026

Rare sighting of a different GT4 specific logo on the 981

Attachment 1344027

Off

Attachment 1344028

On

Attachment 1344029

seahack

The old spoiler looks well used but it is not broken. I am getting my mind around the notion that the spoiler is going to scrape, and it is not a big deal. Thank you for the photos. Just curious, do you have paint protection film on the front bumper above the spoiler?

GeoJoe

Yeah... it's going to scrape eventually - but for mine the previous owner did all that on steep driveway stuff in NC and I rarely scrape anything in ATL area. It's CPO and I got free shipping on black Fri so it's all good and back to new.

Yes to PPF. You can see those diagonal seams PO had done too. My local guy would have done a better job.