Between June 23 and September 5, Porsche built 53 Boxster and Cayman models for the U.S. market with a little snippet of code that makes them potentially totally illegal to drive. The German automaker says an employee was manually altering code in the rear vehicle control unit, which now allows the rear spoiler to over-extend, potentially blocking visibility of the car’s CHMSL. As a result, the company is issuing a recall to fix the faulty code, which affects all 718 Cayman GTS 4.0 and 718 Boxster S models built in that period.
Porsche has said that it isn’t aware of any crashes, complaints, or broken components related to this issue, but the issue can certainly put these cars in legal hot water. U.S. highway safety laws require a visible center high mounted stop light, and it has to be visually unobstructed for following cars at all times. On both versions of the 718, if you’re driving above 75 mph the spoiler will deploy, and it retracts if you dip below 55 mph. At those kinds of speeds you really want your brake lights to be visible. Porsche says the higher spoiler might also affect the vehicle’s driving dynamics, as it wasn’t designed to work at these heights.
It isn’t clear why an employee was manually entering code into control units of cars on the assembly line, or why they were allowed to do so for a little over two months, but thankfully the issue is fairly minor. You can check if your car is affected by the recall by inputting your VIN on the NHTSA’s recall page, or simply waiting for Porsche to contact you.
In the meantime, maybe take your Cayman or Boxster out for a track day and see if you’re getting any extra downforce. Who knows, maybe you’ll set a personal best time with the little spoiler deployed higher in the cleaner airflow. Probably not, though.
