This Design Flaw Made Porsche Cayenne Headlights So Easy To Steal, People Apparently Started Using Them To Grow Weed

“Psst, hey kid, wanna buy some Porsche Cayenne headlights?”… Alright, so you’re unlikely to be approached in a dark alley by someone with a bunch of xenon headlights under their trench coat, but headlight theft was a real problem on these Porsches thanks to an incredibly efficient yet flawed way of securing the headlights.

I’m assuming this is how it went: After decades of building sturdy cars in an inefficient manner, Porsche knew it needed to prioritize ease of assembly/repair. Not only would this save money, but Porsche was a very small carmaker and the first-generation Cayenne would sell in volumes never seen before. The faster Porsche could get them down the production line, the more Cayennes it could sell, and the stronger its recovery could be.

On most cars, replacing composite headlight assemblies is a bit of a fuss. Pull the arch liners, drop the bumper cover, find and remove the screws holding the headlight assembly to the car, find and remove screws holding headlights to brackets on certain models — it all adds up to a time-consuming process. Of course, Porsche is an engineering company first and foremost, so it came up with a clever solution to aid headlight installation when developing the 986 Boxster and 996 911. Instead of pesky bolts, Porsche used a little metal rod with a couple of bends in it to lock the headlights into place, and it used the same mechanism on the Cayenne.

The problem with using a mechanism like this is that anything that can push the rods can remove the parts. While Porsche had little access panels in the radiator support cover for releasing Cayenne headlights the proper way, there’s also an improper way to remove Cayenne headlights without doing much if any damage: Just slide something long and thin into the gap below the headlight and push the locking cam. It could be a slim jim, or it could be a particularly long butter knife, or it could just be an extra large slap bracelet. Check out the video above for a better look at the design, or see the photo below if you want the basics (Image number two shows the bent rod that holds the light in):

Unsurprisingly, thieves picked up on this fairly quickly. While headlight theft wasn’t a huge problem on early Boxsters due to the divisive look of the fried egg headlights and the vast majority of cars featuring conventional halogen lighting, Cayennes often featured expensive xenon headlights and these SUVs were comparatively everywhere. Porsche built 164,874 986 Boxsters between model years 1997 and 2005, but it built more than 250,000 Cayennes between 2003 and 2010. That’s a lot more headlights to steal and a lot of potential customers for replacement headlights. Not only were the pricey xenon units worth a mint on the second-hand market, they allegedly had other uses than illuminating the road ahead.

Porsche Headlights To Grow Weed?

Weed, green, pot, bud, ganja, reefer, tree, herb, broccoli, freestyle jazz cabbage. Whatever you like to call it, it’s no surprise that cannabis is a popular recreational drug. It can allegedly turn a peanut butter and mayo sandwich into the food of the gods and make Dane Cook seem funny again. In most jurisdictions around the world, it’s also illegal to grow and fairly lucrative. Not the sort of crop you’d grow outdoors, then. However, growing cannabis indoors requires plenty of light and stolen xenon headlights would theoretically make not terrible free grow lights as they put out UV-rich beams and are fairly energy-efficient. In October of 2012, Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reported that thieves in Amsterdam had made off with 20 pairs of Cayenne and Panamera headlights in a single week, and noted that the thefts were suspected to have a connection to the cannabis trade. In December of the same year, British newspaper The Guardian claimed that the count had risen to 35 pairs of headlights in Amsterdam alone. That’s a lot of criming.

Thankfully, the second-hand value for older Porsche Cayenne headlights has waned, partly because the cost of new headlights has come down but mostly because so many have been consigned to junkyards. A brand new OE Valeo xenon headlight for a 2005 Cayenne costs $843 from FCP Euro, while used headlights go for between $300 and $400 on eBay. However, older Cayennes aren’t the only targets. As De Telegraaf noted, thieves moved on to Panameras, and even recent Porsches use a similarly-insecure headlight locking mechanism. If you own a newer Porsche and are afraid of having your headlights nicked, the best defense is likely secure indoor parking. That, and good insurance.

(Photo credits: Porsche, Угона.нет)

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