Porsche Macan locks up, skids during moose test

When tested by Teknikens Värld, the Porsche Macan S Diesel was noted by the test driver as behaving "very strange in the moose test, most especially because the left front brake locks up in the middle of the manoeuvre".

According to the magazine: "The result is that the car continues straight ahead for a moment, instead of continuing the turn to the right to get back into the correct lane. In other words, the car with its passengers remain unnecessarily long in the opposite lane".

The Swedish publication's test involves driving at 70km/h, suddenly swerving to the left to avoid a theoretical moose and then swerving to the right to get back into the original lane.

Under repeated testing with the same car, as well as with another Macan S Diesel, the vehicles continually exhibited the same behaviour.

Porsche explained the car's behaviour as a "deliberately applied intervention to prevent the car from rolling over". According to the German sports car maker, the Macan's active rollover protection system brakes the outside front wheel momentarily to prevent "oversteer, rollover or detachment of the tyre from the wheel", resulting in a understeering response.

"The video shows that an understeer response is selected on purpose since it is significantly easier for the driver to control than oversteer," a statement from Porsche explained. "The function shown and the resulting driving response are explicitly desired to increase driving safety in such a highly dynamic driving manoeuvre."

In the same test, two of the Macan's competitors, the BMW X4 and Range Rover Evoque, both performed as expected, returning to the initial lane without lock up, or any injury to the moose or the course's safety cones.

In 2012, the Jeep Grand Cherokee performed even more poorly in the same test, becoming unsettled and lifting two wheels off the ground. Its rivals, including the Volkswagen Touareg, passed the moose avoidance manoeuvre without any issue.