mgerber

I respectfully disagree with your statement.

Here is one example of a few similar situations I have seen in the past year. A close friend just went through the following about 5 months ago. His brand new R8 V10 Sport (approx $200K sticker IIRC) was t-boned at an intersection when the other driver ran the red light. Repairs estimate was in the $50K range (repair cost of approximately 30% of market value). Insurance company totaled the car as the salvage value plus repair costs exceeded the market value.

So it will depend on how your carrier wants to treat the situation, but there is a good chance that if the salvage value is high the carrier will total the car. Sorry to be the bearer of this news.

Joe - regarding your question about the suspension components, maybe a call to someone like John at BGB will get you an answer (?). Looking to the guys that spend time replacing parts, tuning and racing the cars is always a good source of data. The dealership techs/managers rarely get into the component repairs these days.

okie981

Hopefully someone who has removed the OEM struts to upgrade them with aftermarket units has an OEM part laying around that could be examined to confirm. Even if one isn't visible outside the shock, is it possible there is some type of small spring or bump stop internal to the shock tube assembly for when the piston reaches end of travel?

MVEED3

The GT4 has inverted monotubes. The only way to tell if there's internal protection is to open one up and I didn't want to mess with the PASM components.

okie981

Thanks for those photos. I see no bump stop. And the stud passes through the monoball camber plate until the shoulder of the stud contacts the monoball metal-to-metal, I assume. So....unless there is something internal, there appears to be no bump stop. This applies same way to GT3 parts. I wonder when both cars are at design target ride height (GT3 and GT4) if the shock is at the same compressed position and therefore has the same travel to hit bottom? Spring rates are different.

Joe Weinstein

Thanks all, I am appealing to my PNA contact to fight for me against that
decision. As your helpful posts have said, this can't be normal. There are
common cases of a big-wheel, low-tire car getting a dented wheel, but it
is unheard-of that a full quarter of the chassis self-destructs with a bump
or pothole that dents the wheel so minorly that the experts had to take it
to a machine to detect it.

sl951

Inverted monotube shocks have 'internal bumpstops.' Instead of a hard stop, modern designs use elastomers. Porsche has been using different types of elastomers for awhile now, they act more like a progressive-hard-spring - hence they are commonly referred to as 'secondary springs' in the PET parts catalog.

In case of the GT4/GT3 inverted monotube design, they are located internally at the bottom, like the following.

Shandingo

You might consider mentioning to PCNA that the GT4 community and other Porsche owners are following the developments of your unfortunate predicament very closely, and you are planning to update the entire community as to PCNA's ultimate response. Unless you have told them that is the case, they may not do as much for you as they would if they knew that their inaction would be transparent to a large group of their best customers.

sl951

Yes, you should fight this.

The wheel/tire should have been completed destroyed to generate enough forces to essentially break the chassis.

As many, many veterans have noted we have never seen this failure on any previous chassis (997 and below...)

If the 'strut tower' has a part number we should keep track of it. A sudden revision/supercede would provide a clue about Porsche's awareness.

Yargk

Mention that this thread has 21,000 views and 250 posts.

4carl

Is the picture from a GT3 or4 shock? thanks carl

aigle836

If Porsche does not boulge, I would put a complaint in at the NHTSC, as this might be a safety concerns that they should investigate. If it happens to more owners and they put a complaint in, it could get a lot more expensive to Porsche than fixing the few cars where it happened so far. My 0,02$.

Alan C.

That didn't work with the GT3 coolant lines.

needmoregarage

Very sorry you have to go through this. I've been following from the sidelines.
Subscribed.

okie981

Thanks for the photo and the post. Picture is worth a thousand words. Would like to know the answer to 4carl's post asking if this is a photo of the GT3/GT4 monotube shock, if you have that info.

So I can only assume they are saying the structure below has to be replaced? There is one interweb parts supply house offering this "part" for around $9,800. Seems a little hard to believe all this has to be replaced, but only the engineers at Porsche know what must be done to ensure the original head-on crash worthiness remains after a repair, and don't forget the IIHS offset crash test, it's the most severe case:

okie981

According to the online Nemiga.com PET, the strut tower is used on 981 and 991 cars, including the recent 718 Boxster and 991.2 cars. Earlier today I called a Porsche dealer parts department and another Porsche supplier I found online, and they both said they could get the shock tower part from the Atlanta Porsche warehouse within 2 or 3 days for around $300 (online) to $400 (retail at dealer). The part number I gave them was the one referenced by the Nemiga PET: 991 501 477 00G RV. If you ask for the 991 501 477 00 part, they can't find it, you have to ask for the number with GRV suffix on the end, i.e. the "prime coated" part on the online PET.
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