Automotive

patrick_y
[PuristSPro Moderator]
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I was being somewhat overgenerous of my description of Porsche clientele...

Porsche clientele look at the Porsche brand as a more technically inclined brand. But if you look closely, almost all Porsche's 2-door models (with only a very few exceptions like the 959, Carrera GT, Porsche 918, and only the GT3 and GT3RS models in the past four years) have MacPherson strut suspensions! The MacPherson strut suspension is a lower cost suspension set up. Its main advantage is that it's easier and cheaper to produce, easier to maintain, smaller to package, and easier to install. The main disadvantage is that it does not give you maximum tire contact (ie full grip) to the road in off-camber corners. What is an off-camber corner? Well, let's say you're driving quickly, in a giant bowl. You're on the concave side of the bowl which is holding you onto the road. That's good. But let's say you're on the outside of the bowl, you're in a convex surface, and if you drive fast enough, with less tire grip, you may fly off the bowl in a tight turn because you don't have enough tire grip.
Thus, what is the alternative? Double wishbone suspensions. If you look at Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Rolls-Royce, Aston Martin, Bugatti - just about any expensive car brand you can think of, they all use double wishbone suspensions. The double wishbone suspension's main disadvantages are it takes more packaging space (netting you a smaller front trunk in the Porsche world), it has a whole additional control arm so it weighs more and thus needs to be made of lighter materials to prevent a total weight increase, and there may be more rubber bushings to replace. But its advantages are significant; it maximizes the contact patch of the tire onto the road in both on-camber and off-camber corners.
Porsche 2-door car buyers are generally not very familiar with the facts above and are not familiar with the differences between a double wishbone and a MacPherson strut suspension. Thus, perhaps I was too generous when I said they were technically focused buyers - as given this evidence, the original statement might not survive cross examination by a lawyer and jury. It's also not extremely necessary to be aware of these things if you're driving on public roads at legal speeds. So the tire grip issue doesn't apply to 99% of Porsche owners - since they are all driving on public roads (which are generally well built roads with few if any off-camber corners) and reasonably safe speeds. Also, perhaps ironically, Porsche's 4-5 door cars generally have double wishbone suspensions!
Porsche has also cut the "dry sump lubrication" system out of most of their cars, even including the Porsche 911 Turbo - one of their most expensive models! Oil sits at the bottom of the engine and sloshes from left to right in the turns. This means the pump at the bottom of the engine is not pumping any oil and in long turns the engine may run into oil starvation problems. Thus, most race cars have "dry sump lubrication systems" which means there are two pumps; a pump that pumps oil from the bottom of the engine into the top of an external tank, and a second pump that pumps oil to the top of the engine from the external tank. This external tank acts as a near infinite supply of oil. Porsche has eliminated this external tank (due to costs and packaging), and now simply runs the risk of oil starvation issues. Again, 99% of Porsche drivers DO NOT drive the car at high speeds through a turn (which causes the oil to slosh to the side), to warrant the need of a dry sump. Thus, Porsche has simply eliminated this.
Almost no Porsche client, except the Porsche ultra-faithful (I'm guilty of this, waving my hand here) who actually track their cars, really complain. As the lack of a dry sump system is not a major issue unless you drive the car to its limits. What happens when you drive a car with intermittent lubrication? You might smell a burnt metal smell - I've certainly smelled it before. The car will also require more frequent oil top off even if you drive normally (meaning you've probably scratched the metal inside the engine permanently and these scratches are harboring oil which eventually gets burned off leading to increased oil consumption).