Well as per my quick previous post here i got a recall notice on my car.
I finally got to the bottom of the actual truth behind this, firstly don’t believe the standard BMW response that the dealers, customer support or anyone representing BMW are telling you. the response will no doubt be:
“just as a precaution measure we are replacing the airbag and due to parts shortage this cant be done till January 2015”
First Contact
First contact i made with BMW was a call to my dealer to establish what the letter means, as this was somewhat unclear. The letter mentioned the was a fault, said the parts possibly might not be there and to call various numbers, it then went on to say wait to be contacted.
I rang up my local dealer, I said i have a recall letter on my car and without hesitation or mentioning airbag the girl knew exactly what it was about and said:
“ahh the airbag, just as a precaution measure we are replacing the airbag and due to parts shortage this cant be done till January 2015”
So being rather relaxed about the issue i accepted the answer and that was that.
The truth/Information
Whilst eating some lunch i decided to Google a bit and unearthed a whole load of information mainly from the US about the faulty airbag made by “Takata” this was widely used in many car makes (Honda, Subaru and BMW) just to name a few.
Feel free to google “BMW Takata airbag recall” this will return loads of information!
The worrying fact in all of this is the story is old and it has been known about for years, it has been officially linked to about 6 deaths! (so why the delay BMW- cost maybe?)
Second Contact
Pretty scared for mine and other peoples safety in my car i got straight on the phone, this time to the customer support number who told me.. (yes you guessed it)
“just as a precaution measure we are replacing the airbag and due to parts shortage this cant be done till January 2015”
The person on the phone went on to tell me that the car is safe and its not the same part. (ohh really?)
I wouldn’t stop there this time.. i got on the phone to another BMW dealer and this time the mechanic/parts guy (yep i went past everyone else) told me on the phone the part in my car is “Takata” and that it will be the same recall as has been known about for years.
Third and final contact
Customer support email, whats even funny about this contact with BMW is the person sending the emails somewhat shot themselves in the foot they sent out a standard mail merge response email(about the airbag) and then tried to recall the email as i had this in my inbox:
“Recall: Customer Service [SRNUMBER=”
I wont put the full email as it contains my address and cars details but a few quotes from this:
“just as a precaution measure we are replacing the airbag and due to parts shortage this cant be done till January 2015”
“a malfunction cannot indefinitely be ruled out”
The questions we need BMW to answer:
Why so long?
How have they managed to keep this away from the UK press?
If they are “safe” then why the recall..