Airbags in a few BMWs could open weird, potentially making them less effective
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by Sebastien Bell
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BMW is launching a recall just a month after an engineering and development test of a new vehicle model found an issue with certain airbags that were also used in the all-electric iX, as well as the X1.
BMW first became aware of the issue in January when its engineers noticed that the airbag on an unnamed “new vehicle model” deployed unusually. It, therefore, launched an investigation into the issue.
It found that, although the airbag deployed oddly, it still conformed to U.S. safety regulations. It continued to investigate, though, running full vehicle, sled, and system-level tests to get at the heart of the issue, and found that the new vehicle shared its airbag with certain iX and X1 models from the 2022-2023 model years.
Read: 2023 BMW 7-Series And i7 Models Face Airbag Deployment Failure
After analyzing their airbags, it was found that in rare cases, a production process anomaly could affect the “rebound tether strap.” In vehicles affected by this anomaly—BMW estimates that less than one percent of vehicles in the recall class will actually present this issue—the airbag’s deployment trajectory could deviate, which could make it less effective.
On February 7, it decided to initiate a recall campaign for 2022-2023 X1 xDrive28i models made between August 2, 2022, and February 1, 2023, as well as 2022-2023 iX xDrive40, xDrive50, and iX M60 models made between October 14, 2021, and February 1, 2023.
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BMW has included 6,339 X1s and 9,464 iXs in the campaign, for a total of 15,803 vehicles in all. The automaker says that it has not received any reports of injuries, deaths, or accidents related to this issue. It will start getting in touch with customers on April 7 by first class mail and ask them to return their vehicle to a dealer for a repair that will be conducted free of charge.
