BMW, German luxury car maker, announced Wednesday that it is recalling 1.6 million cars worldwide as a precautionary step due to potential airbag defect.
BMW, one of the largest luxury car makers, is expanding a recall of its best selling models to fix an air bag defect, which has created chaos in the auto industry after GM's ignition switch problem. Several car makers such as Honda, Mazda, Nissan, Toyota and GM have got back millions of vehicles worldwide due to defective inflators in Takata airbags. BMW is the latest lining up its car fleet for a similar issue.
BMW announced the recall Wednesday, which included the company's 3-Series models manufactured from May 1999 to August 2006. The Munich-based car maker said it will be replacing the passenger side airbags in 1.6 million affected vehicles to minimize the risk of explosion. BMW's recall is out of concern as its competitors using similar airbag systems manufactured by Takata Corp. brought in more than 5 million vehicles last month, Bloomberg reports.
Faulty inflators in Takata airbags have prompted car makers to recall millions of vehicles. Toyota recalled 2.27 million vehicles globally. The recall affected almost 20 different models. A similar problem led car makers such as Nissan, Honda, and BMW among others to recall 3.6 million vehicles last year. The car makers are being prompt in fixing the problem to avoid ending up in a situation like GM for the controversial ignition switch problem.
The problem is affecting the front passenger airbags that have been fitted with a faulty propellant component. In case of a crash, the faulty component can cause the inflator to break and injure the passenger. Honda recalled a total of 6 million vehicles due to defective airbags since 2008, including the 2 million recalled vehicles last month. The issue has been related to two deaths in 2009.
BMW's latest recall is an expansion of an earlier one last year. The car maker had fixed 240,000 3-Series vehicles for the airbag defect. BMW says the units replaced with a new airbag module last year are not included in the current recall.
BMW will contact affected customers and fix the problem for free. The procedure should take about one hour.
