GT350R or GT4

[Tank]

I have seen reports about the strut tower failure and transmission. Have not been able to find any statistics on how pervasive a problem this is (what is the failure rate). Anyone have any idea?

No idea. Just seeing what @nastang87xx posted would be enough to discourage me until P issues the fix...

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[car crazy]

Wow. I have read about that GT4 strut tower failure quite a few times. That is brutal. How does one fix that?
I'm also interested in a 991.1 GT3 but it seems all those engines are on borrowed time. Porsche did give all GT3 owners an extended 10 year engine warranty but that leaves 5 years left depending on the GT3 model year. Apparently I need to hold out for a GT3 RS or 991.2 GT3.

 

[Austinj427]

Sharkwerks said the strut tower issue has also happened on the 991.

 

[svttim]

srsly guise?!

Now that's a GT4!!!!

 

[nastang87xx]

There are some things I can brush off like a trans failure here or there, or goofy sounds etc etc. But when CATASTROPHIC structural failure like that happens, that genuinely scares me and is completely unacceptable. I would assume Porsche being Porsche though, that they'd take care of such matters.

 

[Hack]

That strut tower issue is very scary to me. I didn't see any corrosion, so

There are some things I can brush off like a trans failure here or there, or goofy sounds etc etc. But when CATASTROPHIC structural failure like that happens, that genuinely scares me and is completely unacceptable. I would assume Porsche being Porsche though, that they'd take care of such matters.

It's one thing if the car was rusty, but failure like that without corrosion is a scary thing. I wonder whether cracks are visible before failure or not.

 

[Dominator961]

Until Porsche has a fix for the strut tower failure issues on the GT4 (if a fix is even possible), I'd avoid them, especially for the difference in price.

Good ole German engineering lmao.
Cast aluminum strut towers.

 

[Docscurlock]

Ouch! That's the thing that scares me away from more exotic cars like Porsche. One failure like that and my whole fun budget is blown. I could eat a failure on a GT350, could stuff my VOODOO in a GT or have an Aluminator thrown in my ride but a failure like that not covered under warranty would ruin my day.

 

[Scoobs]

And Porsche denies warranty claim

 

[nastang87xx]

Wow, this was only a few weeks ago????

 

[Demonic]

Out of curiosity I read through the whole thread on Rennlist. It appears although not common it has happened to a handful of the members and Porsche hasn't warrantied them stating they found evidence of an impact causing it. Apparently the strut hat area is a cast piece. The ones who had it repaired said it cost $25-30k because a large section of the chassis has to be replaced and they use a factory jig to line everything up again. One member had a metallurgy analyst company examine the piece and said there were stress cracks developing prior to whatever impact caused the actual failure. I understand every car can have failures, but it seems in the past Porsche has been pretty good about warrantying things like that. I guess there are so many variables in that kind of failure that it's difficult to assume responsibility.

 

[Hack]

Using a cast aluminum piece in an area that absorbs shocks and on a high performance vehicle meant for driving fast.

 

[Demonic]

Using a cast aluminum piece in an area that absorbs shocks and on a high performance vehicle meant for driving fast.

I agree, though to be fair they mentioned that it's supposedly a Porsche-proprietary alloy. I suppose it's a situation where the real world just didn't jive with the engineered solution.

 

[Laststandard]

Using a cast aluminum piece in an area that absorbs shocks and on a high performance vehicle meant for driving fast.

Well, the Alpha platform uses aluminum for the front shock towers, although they have a hell of a lot more bracing compared to the GT4.

 

[Hack]

I agree, though to be fair they mentioned that it's supposedly a Porsche-proprietary alloy. I suppose it's a situation where the real world just didn't jive with the engineered solution.

Yeah - in all seriousness I agree I wasn't being fair at all. There are lots of cast aluminum wheels out there that withstand more shock than this piece. I'm sure someone who's very knowledgeable did a lot of work on it. Failure has to be rare as well.

Typically casting as a process produces more brittle pieces and aluminum is brittle in the first place, though - so a lot of cast aluminum parts have big factors of safety designed in. Aluminum also typically doesn't have an endurance limit, so I'm not sure how someone would design that part taking fatigue into account. Castings can also have inherent flaws and porosity that varies from part to part. Lots of potential failure modes there that are beyond my experience.

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