Maserati Quattroporte recall (UK, Australia and USA)

If you were one of the first Brits to take delivery of a Maserati Quattroporte Automatic, it might be wise to schedule a trip to the dealership in the next couple of weeks. That�s because the marque is about to recall the first 90 examples of the car sold in the UK in order to rectify a fault that could disable its electronic stability control system.

The Italian brand�s problem is with the ECU software that controls the �Maserati Stability Program (MSP)�. When the car�s battery is low, a bug in the software prevents any signals sent by the car�s electronic sensors from being received by the ECU. The car�s onboard computer then assumes that the sensors are faulty, and disengages the car�s traction and stability control systems; its antilock brakes, however, will continue to work.

�If you use your Quattroporte every day, you�ll probably never encounter the fault,� a company spokesperson told us, �and if you do, it�ll go away once you charge the battery and restart the car.�

�We�ll be informing the affected owners by post in the next few weeks, and they�ll be asked to bring their cars back to their nearest service outlet, where a new ECU will be fitted free of charge. The fix should only take a couple of hours.�

Maserati was quick to assure us that it had updated its factory stock of ECUs to fix the problem on new-built cars some months ago, so if you buy a Quattroporte Automatic today, you�ve got nothing to be concerned about. However, it�ll be a pretty costly episode for the Trident overall, with 90 cars affected here, 30 affected in Australia, and in excess of 700 in the USA.