Luxury automaker BMW has recalled approximately 1.6 million cars worldwide, including 574,000 in the United States, due to the possibility of injury from defective passenger-side air bags, reports the New York Times.
The recall, which applies to BMW 3 Series cars from the model years 2000-2006, is an expansion of a previous 42,000-vehicle recall that was issued in May 2013 for 3 Series cars from the model years 2002-2003. That recall involved more than 3 million cars worldwide from a variety of different automakers, including Honda, Toyota, Nissan, and Mazda, all involving air bag inflators manufactured by the Takata Corporation.
According to BMW, the air bag inflators could injure passengers by sending metal shards from the inflator case into the air during deployment due to excessive propellant in the inflator case. Although there have been no reported cases of ruptured inflators causing injuries on BMW vehicles, there have been deaths associated with Takata-manufactured air bag inflators in other vehicles. Honda acknowledged that two U.S. drivers died as a result of exploding Takata-manufactured driver-side air bag inflators. In the past few years, Takata components have been responsible for the recall of more than 10 million vehicles made by various automakers.
Although the BMW recall was voluntary, automakers are legally obligated to notify the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of plans for a recall within 5 business days of discovering a safety problem.
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