Home · 2012 Porsche 911 Targa 4s Heritage Edition · Complaints

What 5 owners told NHTSA about the 2012 Porsche 911 Targa 4s Heritage Edition

These are the actual owner complaints behind this car’s reliability verdict, filed with the federal government, unedited. They’re unverified reports, not confirmed defects: read them as leads for your pre-purchase inspection, not a diagnosis.

All (5)Crash / fire / injury (1)Body & structure (1)Electrical system (1)Engine (1)Fuel system (1)Lights (1)Speed control (1)Transmission & drivetrain (1)

1 of 5 complaints match · Lights · clear filters

Oct 22, 2024Lights

Tail light fall off the car while driving, catching it dangling from the car holding by only one wire. Upon inspection, they came off due to a broken plastic lug that was holding the taillights together. It appears that Porsche changed the taillight mounting design in the 991 after the 2013 model year, adding a metal piece to keep it together even after the plastic cracks, melts, or fails. Mine is 2012 so it will cost us a fortune for get it fixed, for something it was clearly a design failure from the beginning.

NHTSA ODI 11621187

Working with the data? Download all 5 complaints as CSV · fetched from NHTSA July 27, 2026

How to use these: a complaint is one owner’s report, filed voluntarily and published unverified. Patterns matter more than any single story. If several owners describe the same failure at similar mileage, put that system at the top of your pre-purchase inspection list. Back to the full 2012 Porsche 911 Targa 4s Heritage Edition verdict →