Photo: Land Rover
Land Rover has announced a recall for about 40,000 of its small SUVs due to an issue with the passenger airbag. While many vehicles have suffered from passenger airbag recalls recently due to a supplier issue from Takata, the 2010-15 Land Rover LR2 and 2012-13 Range Rover Evoque are being recalled because of a computer problem that could possibly prevent the passenger airbag from inflating during an accident.
The problem on 17,066 LR2 SUVs and 23,485 Range Rover Evoque SUVs stems from Electronic Control Unit (ECU), which controls the airbags among many other vehicle systems. On these models, the Occupant Classification System could fail. Since the sizes of front passengers vary greatly, the Occupant Classification System uses a sensor to detect how much the occupant weighs. It can deploy the airbag at various stages depending on the weight of the passenger (less airbag force is required for lighter occupants thus reducing the possibility of being injured by the airbag) or it can deactivate the airbag completely if the seat is unoccupied.
According to documents associated with the official National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recall notice, this issue will cause reduce the effectiveness of the passenger airbag on the LR2 and it will deactivate the passenger airbag on the Range Rover Evoque. Fortunately, there have been no reports of injuries due to the problem, and the remedy for the recall is simply an update to the computer.
The recall is for LR2s built between January 27, 2009 to July 01, 2014, which means that only some of the 2010 LR2 models and all 2011-15 models are affected. Range Rover Evoque models built from June 15, 2011 to October 25, 2013 will also receive notices.
The recall is expected to begin by the end of this month, but if owners of either the LR2 or Range Rover Evoque have questions, they can contact Land Rover customer service at 1-800-637-6837. Also, NHTSA’s Vehicle Safety Hotline is able to answer questions, and they can be contacted by phone at 1-888-327-4236 (TTY 1-800-424-9153), or by visiting the www.safercar.gov website.
According to documents associated with the official National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recall notice, this issue will cause reduce the effectiveness of the passenger airbag on the LR2 and it will deactivate the passenger airbag on the Range Rover Evoque. Fortunately, there have been no reports of injuries due to the problem, and the remedy for the recall is simply an update to the computer.
The recall is for LR2s built between January 27, 2009 to July 01, 2014, which means that only some of the 2010 LR2 models and all 2011-15 models are affected. Range Rover Evoque models built from June 15, 2011 to October 25, 2013 will also receive notices.
The recall is expected to begin by the end of this month, but if owners of either the LR2 or Range Rover Evoque have questions, they can contact Land Rover customer service at 1-800-637-6837. Also, NHTSA’s Vehicle Safety Hotline is able to answer questions, and they can be contacted by phone at 1-888-327-4236 (TTY 1-800-424-9153), or by visiting the www.safercar.gov website.
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