Stuttgart. Dr. Ing. h.c.
F. Porsche AG, Stuttgart, is checking the roof mechanism worldwide
on 18,165 units of the 993-series 911 Cabriolet built in the period
from 11 August 1993 - 26 January 1998. This involves 8,252 cars in
Europe (6,003 in Germany) and 8,952 cars in the USA. The reason for
this inspection is the possibility of the soft top opening
inadvertently at high speeds. No accidents or cases of bodily injury
attributable to this malfunction have been reported so far.
On a car involving this
complaint, Porsche initially assumed that the problem was due to
faulty maintenance, since no damage of this kind had been observed
before in Porsche's ongoing supervision of products and quality.
When
two further cases became known in Germany, however, a
crack was found in the drive gear of the roof locking
motor. Porsche then decided to check all models of this
type for reasons of safety, not only inspecting the
alignment of the roof and the correct position of the
roof attachment pins, but also replacing the two roof
locking motors serving to firmly fasten the soft top
above the windscreen frame. The new electric motors
feature a stronger, reinforced drive gear locking the
roof in position, and new sensors provide a safe and
reliable warning signal in the instrument cluster
whenever the roof is not properly closed when setting
out.
