Quote:
Originally Posted by returnofcc
Yes, that was the car I was talking about. And I don't think that the aluminum body panels on the porsche are easier to damage than the body panels on the zr1. If you have proof to back that up, I would like to see it.
And I wasn't talking in performance terms either. As dragoneye and you both pointed out, aluminum is heavier. Not everything about a Porsche has to be built with performance in mind. It's about build quality. I know if I paid 100k for a car, I would be disappointed to find out that the entire body is made of plastic. That's precisely why Porsche is what they are. They aren't solely dedicated to performance, even though they excel in that also...
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Aluminum panels ARE easier to damage and harder to repair. I only have my 2 years in autobody (ICAR certified) and 10 years in the insurance industry to offer as proof.
Aluminum has 3 issues in body panels. The first is it's a relatively soft metal, so equal impacts will do more damage to the aluminum then steel (I'll talk about Corvette in a second). Second is when it is damaged, it has a tendency to stretch and it has low 'memory' compared to steel. Therefore it's significantly harder to hammer and dolly it back to happiness. 3rd, it doesn't weld the same as steel, it's perfectly weldable- but you are going to need a more experienced welder-so more expensive.
Now in the case of the plastic panels on the newer vettes, they can actually take low grade type incidents without even getting damaged- like door dings and shopping carts. Minor repairs can be done almost like fiberglass repair but with a different resin that's a little more flexible, or with special filler that you put some mat on for strength. Almost all the panels are bolt-on though.
Carbon fiber repair in a painted non-structural area is almost exactly like repairing fiberglass sheet (non chop). You back the area with netting, then you grind a surface and you overlay carbon fiber onto the cleaned and ground area and resin it. If it's a non painted area, you have to replace it because of the way it looks- but again, it just bolts on. Carbon fiber has some sort of voodoo about it which is probably appropriate for structural stuff, but it's not that hard to work with for regular parts. It really is pretty much high tech fiberglass. I've made clipboards, speaker boxes, I covered a PC case with it, etc.
I don't know how the front end of the Panamera, but I'll tell you the front end of a 911 is a nightmare in a crash. The entire front has a trapezoidal 1 piece tub that is bonded (so you can't fix it with welding as it changes the engineering). A moderate front end hit on a 911 is over-the-top expensive.
But let me say in it's defense, the 911 GT3 is one of my favorite cars on the face of the planet- but there's reasons Corvettes have relatively cheap insurance rates besides just having elderly drivers (I kid).