Last month the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said seven automakers; BMW, Honda, Nissan, Toyota, Mazda, Chrysler and Ford would be recalling vehicles to fix a possible safety defect in air bag inflators built by the Japanese company, Takata.
As we have blogged on several occasions, thousands of GM vehicles have also been recalled for similar Takata-built airbag problems.
This recall affects BMW 3-Series cars manufactured between mid-1999 and mid-2006. The company said that approximately 574,000 cars could be recalled in the US over a concern that front-seat passengers could be injured by metal shards from a deploying airbag in a crash, the company said Wednesday.
This follows a NHTSA investigation into six reports of airbag inflator ruptures, which occurred in other vehicles, in both Florida and Puerto Rico. As we noted in earlier blogs it is believed that high levels of humidity contributed to the airbag problem. More than 7.9 million vehicles have been recalled globally due to the problem.
BMW said it had not received any reports about problems with its airbags, although all the BMWs are being recalled for a problem with the passenger-side airbags.
Including an earlier announcement, BMW has now recalled about 1.8 million 3 Series vehicles relating to these airbag issues. Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Mazda have also recalled millions of vehicles related to issues with the Takata-made airbag inflators.
Takata has also had trouble with the driver-side airbag. Honda acknowledged that two drivers were killed in the US after being hit by inflator-casing shards
Last month, Takata said it would work with the automakers to replace the defective parts in Puerto Rico and Florida, Hawaii, and the Virgin Islands—places that are known to have high humidity.
BMW said in a statement that its most recent recall was “a voluntary precautionary measure.” However, once an automaker is aware of a safety problem it must inform the NHTSA of its plan for a recall within five business days or face a civil penalty.
For more information contact one of our Gacovino Lake attorneys at 1-800-246-HURT (4878).
