STUTTGART – German car manufacturers Porsche and Volkswagen disclosed Friday a worldwide recall of tens of thousands of their Cayenne and Touareg models to check for a defect that could lead to the parking brake damaging the off-road cars’ wiring.

A spokesman at Porsche headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany said both the Cayenne S and the Cayenne Turbo were affected. More than half the cars are in the United States, where Porsche is writing to 11,355 owners asking them to make appointments with Porsche dealers.

Porsche said a spring in the foot-operated parking brake could damage a nearby truss of wiring, leading to a failure of electronic systems in the car. The spokesman said no failure had occurred yet.

Volkswagen said Friday it had been recalling its matching model, the Touareg, since last month.

The two companies developed the sport utility vehicle (SUV) platform jointly, but each adopted distinctive styling and their own drivetrain range for the high-ground-clearance four-wheel-drive cars.

The spring that requires replacing was built into both brands, although they are assembled on different sites.

Europe’s biggest carmaker said it had “nearly finished” its recall of 6,500 Volkswagen Touaregs in Germany and had none left to fix in the United States because the problem had been discovered before last year’s US Touareg launch.

The recall was not made public at the time.

DPA
Subject: German news