Get your BMW airbag recall notice yet?
 

For those of us that still have BMWs, at least...

Since the issue first became public in 2012, I've been corresponding w/ BMWNA about whether my car is affected. After denying the issue for over a year and a half, today I get the dreaded recall letter.

And, of course, it says "At this time we do not have parts to conduct this recall...". Of course not. You only had 18 months to prepare... :ack:

There are an additional 573,935 BMWs affected in this "new" recall:

And then it goes on to say "... please advise all ... passengers ... that ... metal fragments striking and potentially seriously injuring the front passenger ..."

So now I have to wait for notification that replacements are available, decide which dealer I want to mangle my car, and then pull off the wood trim (Birch Anthracite Individual - NLA) and glove box before I let them attack my car. :irate:

The recall was agreed on in July and BMW was supposed to notify customers in August. The letter I got says "September 2014" on the first page. Way to go, BMW. In the past, I'd probably have sided with the automakers when they claimed that the Feds were on a witch hunt to force recalls. But Takata (the airbag manufacturer) knew about this issue since the late 2000's at the latest, and tried to keep the info secret.

Air Bag Flaw, Long Known to Honda and Takata, Led to Recalls (NY Times).

I haven't seen a thing.

The more I read on this the more I'm not minding the car being laid up in the garage.

I got my first one a while ago and gave it to the buyer of my ZHP, I got my second notice (for the other car) today, oddly enough. I think I will take it into the dealer and have the airbag replaced, though I really wonder what kind of looks they're going to give me when I show up with it.

...It'll probably be the best dealership visit you'll ever have.

So is this just pass side, or does it involve both front bags?

Just passenger side. This time. I don't know if the BMW driver bags were made by the same manufacturer - the Honda driver bags were definitely Takata.

Some of the driver's airbags were recalled previously. I'm hoping that they will recall the rest.

But yes, I got the 9/2014 letter as well.

Sadly, the race car is not impacted, so I don't have the opportunity to tow it in and see the looks on their faces.

The vehicle walkaround they do will be interesting. It's going to take the guy an hour to note all the body issues. :lol:

Got the letter today. I'll have to wait for my VANOS to be fixed before I take it in to the dealer (good thing I don't have unobtanium trim otherwise that would be yet another thing to worry about).

I wish they did both sides though. This leave me paranoid about a driver's airbag exploding in my face.

Got mine today too.

Mine arrived yesterday (Monday). I will be very reluctant to have anyone in the passenger seat until this is replaced. Since it only impacts our garage queen (the M3C), it's not that big of a deal. But it's pretty appalling that BMW doesn't have parts and isn't ready to fix the affected cars.

You're expecting them to have 550,000 airbags on hand at the moment the letter goes out?

Yeah, I don't see the need for outrage. Rolling out a fix for something like this must be pretty tough.

It would be nice if there was an easy way to disable the airbag.

Although, I guess unplugging it and throwing a code won't be a big deal since you have to go to the dealer anyway - but I bet they'd charge for the reset.

Not to mention that Takata has to make at least six million, if not more like ten million airbags to cover the recall for everyone.

I highly doubt the BMW dealer would give you any grief if you told them "I unplugged the SRS fuse because this is my only car and I didn't want to risk driving shrapnel into my passengers. Please reset the light when you're done with the recall."

If they did, that would be a bit more of a PR nightmare for BMW and the dealer.

(If do you need to reset it, though, I have the tool :P)

Given that the recall was decided on July 15th, and they didn't send the letters out for 2 months, and that they said they'll have parts in October, yes.

And that's not counting the fact that they've known about this since at least late 2012.

That's sort of ridiculous, and displays a lack of understanding of how slowly large companies work.

Are you responding to my post? I didn't pick the dates, BMW / NHTSA did.

July 15th - BMW notifies NHTSA that they will be announcing a recall. BMW tells NHTSA dealers will be notified in July, customers in August, with parts available "the following month" (presumably September).

And, for the record, Takata notified the NHTSA and BMW about this fault on April 11, 2013:

I thought I read somewhere that this issue has been around for like 10 years....

Doesn't really matter for me right now anyway. Still have to finish drilling out the bolt I snapped in the hub carrier and figure out a way to rig up a new ball joint boot to replace the one I tore getting the carrier off the car. :(

I thought you said it was late 2012 that BMW found out about the issue? :dunno:

I have no idea how long it takes to make tens of thousands of airbag assemblies once you've come up with a revised design / tooling / etc to fix the problem, but I am guessing it's "a long time."

BMW doesn't want to leave its customers in a dangerous situation so I'm sure they're moving as quickly as they can. I guess I'm just not seeing how this is appalling. :dunno:

For what it's worth, the control arms are probably trash anyway. :p

Yes. The April 13th letter was a follow-up letter to Takata's previous letters. It just added a paragraph saying that they found a 3rd reason (operators were turning off the "auto-reject" test feature) for problems, in addition to the two earlier reasons (employees in one plant leaving propellants on the floor where they got damp, and equipment in another plant not compressing the propellant charges correctly).

If you wait long enough, that will happen. Got the driver's side recall notice today, complete with the "at the present time, we do not have parts available" note. It only took from September 2014 to May 2015 for them to get the parts for the passenger airbag - I wonder if this will also be an 8 month wait.

Maybe I should just wait for the recall airbags to be recalled - after all, according to Takata, they don't know what the problem was - they just said to the car manufacturers "here, have some more".

I don't see how an airbag company that had its entire production for the last N years recalled, and has to provide free replacements to the manufacturers, can stay in business. Aside from several years of profits vanishing, why would anyone use them for future products?

I have that notice for two cars now. :celebrat:

5.7 million cars. Holy cow.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...-bags-36730044

The BMW dealer pretty much just laughed at me when I inquired about getting the airbag replacement. :/

I have gotten two notices, both say they will contact me when they have parts.

Same boat.

Query whether it's safer to just disable the thing? Probably not.

BMW requested (and got) an extension which allows then to not have all of the replacement airbags available for installation until May 31, 2017 with all of them installed not later than May 31, 2020. :eek: :ack: :?

In the meantime, they are sending everyone one of these:

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...3tbMVpFF-O16eg

:lol:

Why's that?

Because the airbags aren't available, or because they can't be bothered to fix your old POS car?

I haven't even tried yet.

Not available.

They'd love my car, would be a nice boost to their numbers for sure. :speechle:

I got a letter for the driver's side airbag this week. Dealership has ordered parts.

I had my e46 done yesterday and my 1er is going in next wednesday.

Mine went in a couple months ago

Not BMW, but Tesla is impacted as well. So far, they've only recalled 2012 production. I have a 2013, so expect notice sometime in the next 6 months or so (the 2012 notices went out in Jan or so this year…)

I think I have purged all the affected cars from my fleet. But who really knows what airbags BMW put in from 2016 on...

Still not tired of hearing that story.