Englewood Cliffs, N.J. – Jan. 20, 2017 – Maserati North America, Inc. has announced that it will recall certain Levante S vehicles due to an engine software issue that could lead to transmission problems or even a sudden shutdown.
The Defect
Maserati will recall model year 2017 Levante S cars manufactured between July 1, 2016 and Dec. 13, 2016, according to documents compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. These vehicles all contain software bugs that may cause the transmission to shift to neutral or stop altogether when the car is traveling at 2 miles per hour. This significantly increases the risk of a crash, especially in heavy traffic scenarios.
Timeline of Events
- Oct. 18, 2016 – Maserati received a complaint from China regarding a sudden, unexplained transmission shift during heavy traffic. Several tests were performed in an effort to replicate and isolate the problem.
- Nov. 9, 2016 – The company successfully reproduced the issue and conducted follow-up tests to determine that it was indeed a software glitch.
- Dec. 9, 2016 – A software re-flash solution was developed and tested to ensure that it could resolve the glitch without affecting other aspects of performance, such as emissions numbers.
- Dec. 14, 2016 – Maserati issued its safety recall.
Resolution
Maserati made the software available to fix this bug in December 2016. Customers were notified by letter and advised to contact their local dealers to set up appointments for repairs. The new software upload is expected to take approximately one hour to complete.
