In June 2014, Takata acknowledged that their airbags needed to be recalled because of random explosions with bits acting like flying shrapnel. Takata could not identify which vehicle manufacturers and cars needed to be recalled at the time. Fast forward to May 2015 and 33,800,000 vehicles have been recalled, and the list of manufacturers have grown: BMW, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Acura/Honda, Mazda, Nissan, Subaru and Toyota.
Each manufacturer has been working assiduously with The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to figure out which of their vehicles airbags need to be replaced.
Today, June 2, 2015, Takata Executive Vice President of North America Kevin Kennedy went in front of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing. At a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing, Takata Executive Vice President of North America Kevin Kennedy talked about which airbags will be phased out and how long it will take to replace all the airbags.
BMW 2001 – 2005 – 3 Series Sedan Jun 2000- Aug 2005
BMW 2001 – 2006 – 3 Series Coupe Jun 2000- Aug 2006
BMW 2001 – 2005 – 3 Series Sports Wagon Jun 2000- Aug 2005
BMW 2001 – 2006 – 3 Series Convertible Jun 2000- Aug 2006
For complete model-specific safety recall information, please go to this BMW website and enter either the full 17 or last seven characters of your BMW’s Vehicle Identification Number (VIN).
or
If you want to know if your vehicle is affected by the Takata airbag, go to safercar.gov and check your vehicle’s VIN.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Vehicle Safety Hotline (888) 327-4236 toll-free safercar.gov
Timeline:
On June 12, 2014, BMW initially became aware of this matter via NHTSA. NHTSA advised BMW that Takata Holdings Inc. (“Takata”) had informed NHTSA of a potential problem with certain configurations of its frontal air bag system (specifically the air bag system inflator module) that it produced for several vehicle manufacturers, including BMW. Takata informed NHTSA that certain inflators, manufactured at Takata’s plant(s) between January 1, 2004, and July 1, 2007, for driver-side inflators and between June 1, 2000, and July 31, 2004, for passenger-side inflators, may potentially rupture during an airbag deployment after long-term exposure to high absolute humidity environments, possibly causing an injury. At that time, Takata had not identified a safety defect or made a safety decision.
On June 13, 2014, NHTSA requested all potentially affected vehicle manufacturers to conduct a limited regional campaign for potentially affected vehicles operating in high humidity areas. These areas are identified as high-risk regions, specifically, Florida, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands, even if the vehicle manufacturer had not identified a safety defect or made a safety decision. It is our understanding that NHTSA’s goal is to support an aggressive and robust parts collection, inspection and testing initiative to quickly and effectively identify any possible safety defect, based upon field parts subjected to the same long-term exposure conditions and times in service as the ruptured inflators.
BMW will cooperate in good faith with NHTSA although BMW has not determined that a safety defect exists, by conducting a technical campaign to replace the frontal airbag(s) on the potentially affected vehicles, with a primary focus on vehicles with long-term exposure in the highest absolute humidity areas. The removed frontal airbag(s) will then be evaluated by BMW and Takata to determine if a defect and safety risk exists.
