McLarens Recalled Due To Fire Risk

McLaren recalls Senna, 720S, 570GT and their all-new GT

After two reports of McLaren customers reporting that they could smell fuel in their cars, the Woking-based supercar manufacturer has announced a recall of 2,763 vehicles.

To put this into perspective, McLaren celebrated their 20,000th production car in May 2019, so a recall of almost 2,800 cars is certainly a significant amount.

The affected cars include one of the most popular McLarens, the 720S, affecting model years ranging from 2016-2020. Also affected is the Senna, 570GT and their all-new GT model which only went on sale late last year.

In January 2019, an owner of a 570GT in Latvia reported that they could smell fuel. The dealership replaced the owner’s fuel tank and the issue was reported to McLaren for further analysis.

Over a year later, in February 2020, a UK-based customer reported a similar problem, claiming they could smell fuel coming from their 570GT. This resulted in McLaren reinvestigating the same problem that they had already heard about and ended up discovering an underlying issue found in a group of McLaren models.

McLaren has now concluded that the foam padding that is situated underneath the fuel tanks of these cars is susceptible to water being absorbed into them. If this padding is left wet, it can lead to the fuel tank being corroded and fuel leaking out, causing a smell and also a risk of fire.

Nearly 2,800 McLaren supercars will be recalled and individually inspected. The foam padding will be replaced in affected vehicles and so will the fuel tank, if there are signs of corrosion.

So far, the two cases mentioned above are the only ones reported, suggesting that the problem may be successfully isolated before any owners are potentially injured.

During this pandemic, The McLaren Group have already shown signs of struggle as they placed a number of employees on furlough leave to protect their positions in the company. McLaren has also been busy with producing personal protection equipment (PPE) to help the NHS with the battle against the virus. Working with the University of Southampton, McLaren helped to develop practical and resource-light concepts which were then turned into working production units within a matter of days.

We hope our favourite UK-based supercar manufacturer can overcome the struggles of facing a pandemic and a large recall simultaneously, all whilst supporting the hospital workers on the front lines.

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