Photo: Catalin Garmacea
Last time we checked, the Takata airbag recall was still active, a considerable number of cars still rolling on the street with faulty passenger airbags installed. Considering the size of the mess the Japanese manufacturer created, it will take a while to fix it.
BMW was also affected by this event and they were forced to recall over 1.6 million cars to fix them, and the process is still ongoing. On top of that, it seems that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has found some glitches in the way the passenger airbags work on a variety of models.
To be more precise, we’re talking about 6,073 cars built between 2014 and the present day, part of both BMW’s and MINI’s line-ups. Fortunately (or not), only 2014 to 2015 BMW i3 units are affected by this issue.
2014 to 2016 MINI Cooper and Cooper S models are also included on this list, as are the brand new 2015 and 2016 John Cooper Works versions of the hatch.
According to the governing body from the US, due to a manufacturing error, the passenger’s frontal airbag may not deploy properly in a low-speed crash. Therefore, the person sitting next to the driver might suffer worse injuries than normal in case of a slow impact.
Even though the announcement doesn’t say it, we can guess that, probably, the airbag is deployed with more power than it needs to in such cases, leading to possible injuries.
Of course, fixing the problem will be done by replacing the defective modules with new ones, free of charge. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the recall will kick off on November 20, 2015, so you might want to hold off from that fender bender until then, especially if you have someone sitting next to you and you’re driving one of the cars mentioned above.
To be more precise, we’re talking about 6,073 cars built between 2014 and the present day, part of both BMW’s and MINI’s line-ups. Fortunately (or not), only 2014 to 2015 BMW i3 units are affected by this issue.
2014 to 2016 MINI Cooper and Cooper S models are also included on this list, as are the brand new 2015 and 2016 John Cooper Works versions of the hatch.
According to the governing body from the US, due to a manufacturing error, the passenger’s frontal airbag may not deploy properly in a low-speed crash. Therefore, the person sitting next to the driver might suffer worse injuries than normal in case of a slow impact.
Even though the announcement doesn’t say it, we can guess that, probably, the airbag is deployed with more power than it needs to in such cases, leading to possible injuries.
Of course, fixing the problem will be done by replacing the defective modules with new ones, free of charge. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the recall will kick off on November 20, 2015, so you might want to hold off from that fender bender until then, especially if you have someone sitting next to you and you’re driving one of the cars mentioned above.
Google News