geko29

This week I got a notification of a recall campaign on my 2011 BMW 335d, for the driver's side airbag. Digging into it, a curious story emerged that I thought some of you folks might appreciate.

We all remember the 2013 Takata airbag issue. Like most manufacturers, BMW identified cars that had been built with the faulty airbags and replaced them under a recall campaign, which in their case was largely completed (there are always stragglers) in 2016. Case closed, right?

Apparently some dealers have been occasionally reporting cars coming in with defective airbags who were not subject to the recall. After digging into it, BMW issued a new recall, for 394,000 cars, >99% of which have nothing wrong with them. This new recall actually covers cars that were built with non-defective airbags, where the owner may have subsequently swapped in a steering wheel that DOES have a defective airbag.

Mine still has the factory wheel, rather than the impacted sport or m-sport wheel, so I'm not even going to bother to take it in for inspection. But it is an interesting circuitous route that has brought us here, and I think it's cool that they're taking this opportunity to dot I's and cross T's, even if it means most news stories about it read like "OMG there are STILL 394,000 defective cars from 10 years ago that BMW is just recalling now". Motor1 actually has a decent writeup that explains it properly.

Margate330

Shame on me but I've never taken a car in for a recall service. Lol

link13

I have and it was for faulty fuel pump impellers on my 2019 Civic. I dropped the car off and took Uber home and that’s about a 15 minute trip. I was home for about 5 minutes and got a call that the job was completed. Impressive but I know some current and former dealer service technicians. They are very efficient when it comes to jobs they have to do frequently.

Striker223

Always do stuff like airbags and engine recalls, you get free new parts!

Margate330

I had a couple of important ones for my Hyundai and a seatbelt recall in my Ranger.

Just glad nothing happened. Lol

mmarshall

BMW, like Kia and Hyundai, at least in recent years, seems to be more sensitive and open to recalls than some other manufacturers. I can remember when they were having some BIG problems with engines overheating and catching fire from defective cooling-fans and fan-switch assemblies. That cost a lot of money having to replace expensive powerplants, particularly in the M-series vehicles, and sometimes the entire vehicle itself if it was totalled. And, of course, there was the infamous fuel-pump issue in the older 335 models, although I'm not sure if that affected your diesel version or not...it was generally for gas engines.

link13

They Hyundai and Kia engine recalls are alarming https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/...0on%20or%20off.