911tac

Just to give another view on the problem:
Manthey has had hundreds of GT4 Clubsports and GT4 with ....thousands of track mileage in and out of their workshop. Quite some of them have been raced hard and hiting a lot of harsh curbs.
They haven't seen one strut tower failure on a GT4.

Michaelpickett

That is very reassuring to hear, thank you.

ExMB

Not doubting that you heard that but Manthey is also 51% Porsche owned. With that in mind its easy not to let info out if they don't want to.

mcomet

I would say if you are that worried maybe. Honestly insurance and repairable item right ? My car is over 17k miles no issues. Crocgt4 out here has 70k miles. It’s luck of the draw it seems. If you can’t afford several $k service tho maybe not a great choice. It would be nice to see Porsche own these issues.

Sunny_M3

I feel like every performance car is going to have some issue or the other. Not trying to downplay the specific strut tower issue being discussed, but if you look at the history of sports cars currently and previously released, the issue list is huge:

(1) C7 Z06 --> overheating and paint issues
(2) 991.1 GT3 --> motor issues
(3) Current gen McLarens --> electrical and motor problems
(4) 90s and 2000s Ferraris --> Servicing issues and motor issues

And the list goes on....

Michaelpickett

I realize all performance cars have issues but a failing strut tower could be a catrosphic issue at freeway speeds resulting in death. Really not prepared to take that chance. Has anyone utilized the structure reinforcement provided through SP on theses cars? I believe it is the same idea on the factory club sport GT cars.

d00d

Those plates aren't designed to prevent the failure, although they may prevent the hood from being damaged.
Their purpose is to link to the Clubsport's additional frame struts, to more solidly locate the strut towers relative to the tub.

Michaelpickett

Darn, I thought I found a fix for the Strut failures....

911tac

With all due respect what You're saying is that Manthey is lying about not having had any strut tower failures on GT4s in their workshop because they are owned by Porsche.
That ist not my expierence with Manthey. They have been pretty open about issues also with newer Porsche models. It's part of their buisness to find aftermarket sollutions for these issues.
Taking part in the racing on the Ring and talking with some people that have been using the 981 for years in racing I have never heared of a strut tower failures on any of these cars.
In VLN-racing there are 3 classes full of 981 participating partially with more then 20k trackmiles.

ExMB

With due respect as well. There is a difference between lying and not talking about it. These strut tower failures occur as evidenced on here. AFAIK race teams with CSs have instructions on how to replace these. That is in a way a small acknowledgement that this could occur even with the reinforcements these cars have with the front cage extensions.

hf1

Did they (who, where, when?) actually state that they haven’t seen any failures? Or is this your observation that they haven’t mentioned any failures and that they would have if they had them?

It is also possible that they crash and re-tub cars with enough frequency to not give the struts enough time to fail.

But if indeed no strut failures had occurred after that many hard track miles, that’s definitely a very encouraging data point. The question is whether that really is the case.

Switchfoot614

Random thought, do the clubsports even use the same struts and springs as the street version?

911tac

If Manthey would have said: "don't know", "no comment" or anything like that i'd be with You but as stated before they've said "We have never had any customer of a GT4 (street or racecar) that had a strut tower failure."
And I've talked with them more than once about the topic and it is the answer that I've gotten more than once.
I have never stated that strut tower failures on GT4 don't happen. I don't doubt that the information on here about them are just.
I just wanted to share the information that strut tower failures are not a known issue on tracked and raced 981 GT4 over here.

trkshoe

The shock bodies are more than likely similar, but way higher valving... as would be springs... FWIW, a reputable shop in SF has seen multiple clubsport failures from laguna seca and sonoma.
Manthay is full of **** if they're saying they haven't seen a failure... I know of one of their cars that failed at the 24.

okie981

And the plot thickens....