Back in 2023, the folks at Faurecia merged with Hella to create a new company. The resulting Forvia supplies the Volkswagen Group with driver's seat airbags for the Audi Q7 and Q8, airbags that may have been incorrectly mounted into the seatback frame. As per documents filed with the federal watchdog, this condition stemmed from "worker error in the seat assembly line of the supplier."
The Volkswagen Group became aware of this problem on November 6, 2023 after the supplier performed a routine airbag test. Lo and behold, the driver seat-mounted side airbag was not properly mounted in the seatback frame. The subsequent investigation prompted the German automaker from Wolfsburg to check all vehicles in production at the Bratislava plant in Slovakia and at port facilities.
In December 2023, the topic was elevated to the Audi Product Safety Committee, namely the guys and gals who decide whether a recall is necessary or not. As expected, the Audi Product Safety Committee decided to recall potentially affected Q7 and Q8 vehicles produced for the 2023 and 2024 model years between August 11, 2023 and November 3, 2023.
Despite being manufactured in Slovakia, the vehicles in question all feature 17-character identification numbers beginning with W for what used to be West Germany between 1949 and 1990. The Berlin Wall may have fallen in November 1989, but East Germany wouldn't cease to exist until October 1990. The GDR dissolved after its five states joined the Federal Republic of Germany and East Berlin merged with West Berlin into a single city of the FRG.
Turning our attention back to NHTSA campaign 23V-868, the camera-based supervision of the seat assembly process was optimized in early November 2023. Dealers have already been instructed to check the side airbag and – if necessary – reinstall the assembly in the correct direction.
Photo: Audi
Known owners will be informed via first-class mail no later than February 16. Neither the Volkswagen Group of America nor the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has provided a complete list of potentially affected vehicles, which is why owners are recommended to run the VIN on the NHTSA's website to determine whether their vehicles are recalled or not. Of the 1,001 potentially affected vehicles, one percent are believed to feature incorrectly installed driver seat-mounted airbags.
Codenamed 4M, the second-generation Q7 rolled out in January 2015 at the Detroit Auto Show. Based on the MLB Evo platform that also underpins the Volkswagen Touareg, Porsche Cayenne, Lamborghini Urus, and Bentley Bentayga, the Q7 was joined by the Q8 in 2018 for model year 2019.
Refreshed in September 2023 for 2024, the Q8 starts at $73,700 in the United States market for the 55 TFSI quattro and at 86,700 euros in Germany for the 45 TDI quattro. At the other end of the spectrum, the V8-powered RS Q8 carries a starting price of $125,800. Audi Deutschland still hasn't revised the starting price for the German market as of January 2024.
The RS Q8 is artificially worse than its Porsche and Lamborghini siblings, with Audi quoting 600 ps (592 hp) as opposed to 659 ps (650 hp) and 666 ps (657 hp) for the Cayenne Turbo GT and the Urus twins. The Bentayga V8 is worse still, for it packs 550 ps (542 hp) from the very same 4.0-liter V8 engine.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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