Archimedes

And the impacts that caused the strut tower failure were likely all very big potholes and very large impacts. If this were a common issue, there would have been hundreds of failures and a class action lawsuit. I'll bet the sum total of strut tower failures discussed here and on P9 were 10 or less.

zedcat

991.1 GT3 engine fires were the result of con rod bolt failures and PAG quickly stopped production and sales. After investigation all the cars sold had engines replaced (roughly 800 iirc) and owners were compensated for loss of use. The finger follower issue emerged later and while it took some time, PAG acknowledged the problem and extended the engine warranty. Although disappointing to have such issues I think Porsche handled the 991.1 GT3 engine problems reasonably. M96 engine issues is a different story.

On the 718GT4 CS, there is a metal plate on the shock tower which is bolted via a rod to the front bulkhead and also bolted to an extension tube of the roll cage.

911F1

Come on man, you know what I'm saying. Good grief. Do you truthfully believe that it has to be built this way. On the edge of safety and strength so the
car can handle better? They could redesign or add more material and still figure it out.

Hey someone please post the Facebook Spyder post for us non Facebook people. Thanks!

f50nut

This. We're not talking about a GT4 clubsport that'll never see street use. These are $100k+ street cars with license plates that need to get from point A to point B. Most of the roads in Germany are paved with gold, but outside of that bubble, you're going to run into stuff.

Here in NYC and the tri-state area, potholes and seams are unavoidable. I've cracked wheels, but never wrecked a strut tower.

Hell, a few years ago, I was driving at speed on the expressway in my old MKV GTI, and hit a pothole so bad the windshield cracked, radio flew out of the dash, blew a tire and bent two wheels. The engine shut off and the battery tray broke! I'm surprised the airbags didn't go off. All that, and the towers were totally fine. It's hard to justify fragile aluminum towers on a street car that can also be optioned with AC, double din nav radio and leather dash. And you can draw all the comparisons to the GT3 you want, but that's apples to oranges when you consider different shock stroke and/or springs.

_nosubstitute_

That sucks...let us know the details, because without it, this could be poor driving and bad luck hitting a massive pot hole. Yea, a car shouldn't blow its strut tower after a pot hole, it is what it is. All GT cars generally have this problem, but GT4 are a little worse since the travel is a little shorter than the 991 GT3s.

4MIDABLE

The SPMS Racing strut tower brace?? While it won't prevent the strut tower from cracking/breaking it seems, gotta think that if it prevents the tower from shooting up through the hood, that it more than pays for itself?? $495 for a set.
What's a new/repaired hood going to cost?? More than that I would guess? Anyone have these installed? https://www.spmsracing.com/2015-2016...rt-bracket-kit

Snowy999

Go to the GT4 forum and look at the top. There is a sticky. Very, very few failures but they do occur. The clubsport plate is there to stop the strut going thru the frunk lid. They have happened in competition and on roads (one up Pikes Peak if you search).

Some people's insurance covers the damage (pothole impact for example). Fix is c USD20-25k.

Obv not on track.

The people running the GT4CS have access to training to learn how to reapir.

Not great.

R

4MIDABLE

That's quite the range!!

Question - am I correct to assume that those that choose to lower the car (it has adjustable coils) like the CarswithLuke guy (believe he lowered 14mm) are potentially exacerbating the issue and increasing their odds of having this happen??

9872SpeedYellowCS

This is depressing, I thought Porsche would have worked this out between generations.

flatt6

Hoping we get pics and more details soon. Agree with the comments the strut tower issue on the 981 was very uncommon. It seemed bigger given so much attention to a very small number of incidents that appeared to be related to some other acute event. All that being said, it's very troubling that this has popped up again in such a short amount of time.

dmk2

Stuff breaks, but this is not stuff.

This is the very structure of the car.

Years ago a colleague had a GM truck with an unusual frame rail defect that was the source of a subtle, but uncorrectable alignment problem.

GM replaced the truck with an identical new one. Vehicle was nearly a year old.

Porsche should be doing the same for owners with strut tower failures.

CaymanMatt

I'd say: 1) really unfortunate that this seems to be an issue. Porsche should have reengineered the crap out of that region before re-releasing the GT4. 2) Can you say "Lemon Law"? This will the best recourse if Porsche doesn't do right for the owners of those affected.
MOO

Denny Swift

Come on, the Camry is designed to be driven by little old ladies who will likely never get the car above 70 mph, while the GT4/Spyder are designed to be tracked and taken to the limit regularly. If anything, the latter should be able to take much more punishment. You're not really implying that adding 3mm of aluminum to the thickness of the strut housing would be too much to ask of Porsche, are you? Equating the addition of a little bit of extra reinforcement to a Camry front end is quite a leap.

Objection! I ask the jury to strike that from the record! The witness is jumping to conclusions based purely on speculation. :-)

And regarding the failures not being "common"... There were only 2,400 GT4s made. If there truly were 10 failures that we know of (there were undoubtedly more), that's equivalent to 4,000 - 5,000 of the million or so Camry's on the road. Again, we don't have any information on the one 718 failure that we know of so far.

(Sorry to pick on you! :-) )

Archimedes

Do you truthfully believe that Porsche doesn't know what they're doing, that they concluded that it is a design flaw, and still decided to just keep building cars like this? A very small group of people hit stuff and destroyed their shock towers, while the other 99% of cars out there have had no such problem. I'm sure Porsche took a look at it; they'd be stupid not to, given the potential liability involved. And I'm comfortable that they concluded that the design is fine and people should just not hit ****.

Now, if we start seeing dozens of cars failing, I might change my view, but this is a problem that only a tiny fraction of cars have had. Kinda like the 'oh my God, a pebble is almost certainly going to destroy my PCCB's, because one guy posted about it on a GT3 two years ago!' A lot of hand wringing over something that is a very, very low probability event.

Archimedes

Ten was my high guess, which would be a failure rate of .4%. Pretty small for a car that gets routinely thrashed on the track. And everyone I read about was due to a track off or hitting curbing, so you can't even call those 'failures'.

And this isn't a Camry. It's a high performance sports car, with stiff suspension, where light weight is at a premium. It's not going to be as durable to impact as a Camry or a Ram truck. It is not designed to take massive impacts and be able to dissipate force like a car with softer suspension.