Porsche recalls 911, Boxster and Cayman over front lid fears

PORSCHE has issued a worldwide recall notice for 4428 Boxster, Cayman and 911 sportscars due to a potential fault in the locking bracket of the front lid.

Of the cars affected globally, just 56 are registered on local roads, with Porsche Cars Australia notifying the 27 Boxster and Cayman drivers and 29 911 owners of the possible risk.

A further 20 Australian vehicles are also affected, but they are yet to be delivered to customers.

The fault was discovered “during in-house quality checks” and could lead to the unintentional opening of the front lid on affected cars, according to a statement from Porsche.

Although no cases have been reported domestically or internationally, Porsche says it will correct the problem at no cost with the repair taking approximately 30 minutes.

This latest recall comes just nine months after Porsche was forced to recall all 785 examples of its hardcore 911 GT3 road-going racer after two vehicles were engulfed in flames from an engine failure. Just five of the hardcore GT3s were Australian owned.

The Stuttgart-based sportscar-maker has since announced that instead of fixing the faults in the GT3s, it will replace the engines of all affected models, likely costing millions, but Porsche has acknowledged it does not want to take any risks as customer safety is paramount.

Porsche has sold 285 911s so far this year, which is a 52.4 per cent boost over the same period last year when it had sold 187.

The Cayman is up by 80.2 per cent in the first nine months of 2014 to 182 units, while the drop-top Boxster is down by 15.4 per cent to 165 sales.

Porsche's total sales figure for the year so far is 2021 vehicles, meaning its two-door sportscar range accounts for just over 30 per cent of Australian sales.