Mgkuehn

Third gear AWOL for second time. Same failure as September 2016.
Car built in Jan - Feb 2016, delivered March 2016
Mileage - 7800 miles
Tires - Cup 2's on 19" Forgeline
Track days - 28.5 days

Failure 1 (VIR, Sep 2016)
Oak Tree Turn - brake, downshift to 3rd, turn in, back on gas, brake, turn in, squeeze peddle, no 3rd gear.
RPM's at failure - Approx 5500
Track days at failure - 13.25 Days
Mileage - 4600 miles
Transmission replaced - Sep 2016 by Dealer.

Failure 2, Summit Point - Shenandoah (BRS circuit map - Turn 8), June 4, 2017
Hard brake, down shift into third, turn into moderate speed left turn, open wheel, light tap on brake, turn back to right, squeeze throttle begin to accelerate, at apex RPM's suddenly jump - no third gear.
Additionally, the Traction Control Warning light came on and message came up. Tried several restarts in paddock but would not reset. Pulled the active codes last night. I'll post them later as don't have them with me.
RPM's at failure - 4600
Track days since transmission replacement - 15.25
Mileage - 7800 miles
Note: Been very cautious when driving on the street since replacement not to use/stress 3rd.

Tik

Yup - I was one of them. Major bummer. Drove all the way down from Seattle to join you guys for your event and then HOD on Saturday, only to have my transmission fail after one 20-minute session Friday morning. Packed up and drove back to Seattle on Friday night, dropped the car off with the dealer on Saturday morning.

Hoping for a quick repair - have a number of events coming up. But I'm hearing that there are no new transmissions stateside, so these need to come from Germany...

Gofishracing

Yes - from the motherland- wrapped in paper.

Hams955

Good news. Porsche approved the warranty repair on my car. Gearbox already inbound from Germany. Supposed to be here Wednesday. Fingers crossed it makes it here without damage.

Stopped in to see it today so that I could grab my Aim and smarty cam out of it. I have COTA this weekend so I won't have my GT4. But... I do have this guy as my backup car



- Chris.

needmoregarage

Do you trailer the GT4?

Gofishracing

What's under the car cover?. By the way. You can drive the GT4 without 3rd gear it seems. no seizures or catastrophic events it appears. Sweet ride- Black tough color. Nice

Hams955

930.







- Chris.

Tik

Nope, just drove it the ~700 miles back to Seattle. Made it home at about 1am.

needmoregarage

Any issues driving with the broken gear? Obviously you didn't use third - but were there any funny sounds, or did it feel odd when you went from 2nd to 4th, or any other up/down shift?

If mine breaks it'll likely happen when I'm hundreds of miles from home. On the one hand - I hate the idea of driving a broken car and risking being stranded.

On the other hand - I want MY dealer to do the work and roadside assistance only gets you to the nearest dealer.

Hoping mine isn't going to fail, but I want a game plan so if it happens at least I have an idea of how to best proceed.

I'd worry that the third gear ring is flopping around in there, and could somehow cause damage to other gears, or break up and cause damage. Maybe that's not a risk (I don't have a good picture in my head of what it looks like inside the transmission).

One thing is for sure - worrying won't help me one bit.

Tik

No issues. Everything I've heard from others who have experienced this failure and from my SA is that the rest of the box is fine - nothing clunking around inside that would cause more damage. I spent 99% of the time in 6th on the way home, and the 2-4 shift was no big deal. Just needed to remember to do it that way!

A friend who was on the same trip was also experiencing some car trouble with his R8. He and I both decided to drive back together so we could at least help each other out in case anything happened. If he hadn't decided to leave too, I would have stayed until the rest of my group was ready to go back so I wouldn't be stranded in the off-chance something went wrong.

needmoregarage

Was this your first track day with the GT4 - or had it been tracked previously?

Tik

I've had the car for a year and have done 20+ track days with it. It's pretty much exclusively a track car, so nearly all of its almost 7k miles are either on track or on the way to a track.

Gofishracing

Turbo- Jez- back to my roots. Nice Stable. That rear reflector worth a fortune with the black lettering. I melted many in my past.

Halfshaft

Hi Tik, I'm also from the Seattle area, may I ask which dealership you dropped off to for repairs?

Tik

Bellevue