The brake pads in 71 Porsche Taycans are at the heart of a recall for the automaker, but not for any actual deficiency. Instead, it’s the warning system that informs owners about brake wear that is at issue.
In April, Porsche became aware that the brake wear indicator in its electric vehicle was coded incorrectly. Specifically, the legally-required brake wear symbol was improperly set up for the Puerto Rican market.
Based on documents submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the problem isn’t that Porsche failed to include the warning. Rather, it simply set the car up to have the wrong warning light, with the incorrect color.
Read: Welding Issues Prompt Porsche To Recall Two 911s And A Taycan Turbo
Although the problematic indicator has no impact on the performance of the brake pads, NHTSA warns that it may still be a safety issue. If a driver is not appropriately warned about wear, they may not replace their brake pads before their performance degrades, which may increase the odds of a crash, especially in an emergency scenario. The automaker must, therefore, initiate a recall campaign for the model.
Fortunately, Porsche caught the problem before receiving any reports of crashes or injuries due to this issue. It hasn’t even received any customer complaints about the problem, which affects 71 vehicles from the 2020-2022 model years. Since the fault affects all Taycans in the market, both the standard model and the Cross Turismo variant are impacted.
The automaker plans to start reaching out to owners on July 14 to alert them to the issue. They will be asked to return their Taycan to the dealership, where the instrument cluster will be updated to display the correct warning light, at no cost to the owner.
