Detroit, MI – Oct. 18, 2016 – BMW announced that the company is recalling an additional 4,000 vehicles in the U.S. and Canada that have problems with the air bag inflators made by automotive parts manufacturer, Takata, according to the Wall Street Journal. The recall is for 2014-2015 X5s and 2015 X3s and X5s. BMW has not been the only car manufactuer that has had recall issues as a result of the Takata air bag components, however. The Takata air bag recall has been going on for quite some time now. Here is a timeline of events:
May 19, 2015
The U.S. Department of Transportation urged parts manufacturer, Takata, to recall BMW, Chrysler, Daimler Trucks, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru and Toyota vehicles that have defects with their frontal driver and side passenger air bag inflators. Up to this point, the defect had been responsible for six deaths. About 34 million vehicles were expected to be affected by the recall.
January 22, 2016
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration made a couple of announcements, neither or which were positive. The agency announced that there would be be additional recalls of about 5 million vehicles made by Audi, BMW, Daimler Vans, Ford, Honda, Mazda, Mercedes Benz, Saab and Volkswagen. This came as a result of other, more saddening news of the ninth fatality in the U.S. (10th worldwide) as a result of the failed air bag inflators. The NHTSA said that a 2006 Ford Ranger involved in a crash in South Carolina shed more light on issues with the components of the air bag inflator.
February 12, 2016
Takata issued another recall of more vehicles, including BMW Daimler Vans, Sprinter Vans (labeled Mercedes-Benz, Dodge and Freightliner), Ford, Honda (and Acura), Mazda, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen with defective air bag inflators.
March 24, 2016
One week ahead of a March 31st deadline, BMW told to the NHTSA it would be unable to meet the deadline to supply sufficient parts to meet the need of fixing faulty inflators. The agency amended the deadline for BMW to have working parts by August 31, 2016, instead.
May 4, 2016
Nearly a year after the first round of recalls was issued by Takata, the recalls continued to expand to cover more defective air bags in various vehicles. Up to this point, the faulty Takata air bag inflators were responsible for 10 deaths and more than 100 injuries in the U.S. alone. The parts manufacturer had successfully recalled nearly 29 million vehicles. But the expansion called for the recall of an additional 35-40 million potentially affected vehicles.
September 24, 2016
A driver in Malaysia was killed in a car accident. Though there are still investigations of the Honda underway, professionals heavily suspect that air bags from Takata were the reason for the malfunction during impact. If investigators do prove that the air bags were behind the driver’s death, it would mark the 14th death since the issues began more than one year ago, according to the Car Connection. Across the world in the U.S., Takata began facing more and more legal trouble. The U.S. Department of Justice publicly stated that Takata mishandled the air bag defect.
