BMW of North America has issued a safety recall affecting fewer than 10 examples of the X5 and X7. Supplied by South Carolina-based Yanfeng Automotive Interior, the instrument panels of said vehicles may not have been manufactured according to specifications. No big deal, right?
Oh, but it certainly is a biggie! As per documents filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the instrument panel's resin composition leaves much to be desired. The front passenger airbag module may not be properly attached to the underside of the instrument panel due to the shoddy resin composition, which means trouble in case of a crash. This condition may impair deployment, and worse still, potentially sharp pieces of the instrument panel could separate.
At the tail end of January, the supplier identified an instrument panel with a suspect surface. A second panel was noticed soon thereafter, prompting a containment action and an engineering investigation. Out of an abundance of caution, BMW of North America issued a stop-ship order and a dealer hold at the beginning of February.
The subsequent ash testing determined that the resin composition didn't meet specifications during a specific time period. That's why a meager 8 vehicles instead of 80,000 are recalled, with said vehicles comprising the rear-drive X5 sDrive40i, all-wheel-drive X5 xDrive40i, and the X7 xDrive40i.
All 8 were produced on January 29 at BMW Group Plant Spartanburg, which is the home of everything from the X3 to the X7 and performance-oriented XM. The facility assembles in the ballpark of 1,500 vehicles daily, of which approximately 60 percent are exported to just around 120 markets.
Photo: Sam Cobb for BMW
The document attached below lists no fewer than six part numbers for Yanfeng's X5 and X7 instrument panels. BMW dealers have already been instructed to replace suspect panels at no cost to the owners, while owner notifications will be mailed on or about April 16. In the meantime, owners can use BMW's website to determine if their SUVs are recalled or not by entering the 17-character VIN.
Codenamed G05 for non-M versions and F95 for the Competition-only M, the fourth-generation X5 is a highly successful product. It's the company's best-selling vehicle in the United States market, clocking 72,573 deliveries in 2023 versus 63,172 for the X3 and 50,777 for the 4 Series.
The X7 moved 28,797 units, which isn't bad for a premium-oriented SUV of this footprint, especially one that starts at $81,900 with turbo inline-six muscle and xDrive all-wheel drive. At the other end of the spectrum, the Alpina XB7 plays in a different league from the BMW M60i at $149,400 versus $108,700 and 631 hp compared to 523 hp.
For some reason or another, the X5 hasn't received the Alpina treatment. As opposed to $65,200 for the sDrive40i, the M60i starts at $89,300, whereas the M Competition is $122,300 (sans freight).
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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