Shaming of BMW
Fury as 300,000 British cars recalled over lethal electrical fault – which firm knew about in 2011
BMW was accused of covering up a potentially lethal electrical fault for seven years yesterday after it was forced to announce the recall of more than 300,000 cars.
The German firm warned owners of 312,000 vehicles sold in Britain from March 2007 to August 2011 to return them to dealers for an urgent repair.
The fault can cause vehicles to stall without warning while they are in motion, and prevents the brake lights and hazard lights from working.
An inquest heard last week that the fault was to blame for the death of a former Gurkha who crashed into a BMW in front that stopped suddenly after losing power.
It also emerged during the hearing at Woking Coroner’s Court in Surrey that BMW had first been alerted to the fault by drivers as far back 2011, but only decided to recall 36,000 petrol cars in 2017.
The pressure mounted yesterday when an investigation by BBC1’s Watchdog programme claimed the problem also involved diesel cars and affected models manufactured over a longer period.
BMW faced calls last night to reveal why it failed to act sooner, as it finally acknowledged the scale of the problem and expanded the safety recall almost ten-fold to include 1 Series and 3 Series cars, the Z4 and its X1 petrol and diesel models manufactured between March 2007 and August 2011.
Safety recalls are only issued when a fault is liable to cause significant risk of injury or death – but some BMW owners may have been driving dangerous cars for more than a decade.
Last night the boss of the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) accused the firm of keeping quiet about electrical failure in its cars between 2011 and 2014, and then providing ‘ incorrect information’ about the faults.
One MP said the firm should have instigated a wider recall when the issue came to light. The fault makes a car battery’s connection to the fuse box fail when the wires rub together, meaning the car is left powerless.
BMW recalled three quarters of a million vehicles in the US, Japan, Canada and South Africa in 2013 over a similar fault. But initially it recalled just 36,410 British petrol cars made from December 2009 to August 2011 – and only after former Gurkha Narayan Gurung died on Christmas Day, 2016.
The 66-year- old was travelling with his wife in Hampshire when their Ford Fiesta crashed into a tree to avoid a BMW in front after it stalled on a dark A-road. The BMW’s brake lights also failed, giving him no time to stop safely.
After the accident the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency asked BMW to carry out a full safety recall of 370,000 cars. But BMW only agreed to recall around a tenth of these in April 2017.
The admission that the fault may affect far more cars follows fresh complaints from drivers that were highlighted in an investigation by Watchdog last night.
Drivers of the diesel version of models which were recalled by BMW last year complained that their cars also stopped suddenly.
They include Mwape Kambafwile, whose 3 Series cut out completely while he was driving in December 2016. He told the programme: ‘If I was driving on the motorway with my family, that could have been very dangerous.’
DVSA chief executive Gareth Llewellyn said BMW had breached safety regulations by failing to tell it about 19 cases of electrical failure between 2011 and 2014.
He said the DVSA’s response might have been different if it had known about the extent of the problem earlier, adding: ‘BMW did not make DVSA aware of electrical failure in its cars between 2011 and 2014, as it is required to do.
‘It then provided us with incorrect information about the faults, so we were not able to make an informed decision.’
The DVSA said it only became aware of the issue in October 2014 following a report from a consumer. It then warned BMW about a ‘potentially fatal fault’.
Steve Double, a Tory MP on the Commons transport committee said: ‘It is concerning the manufacturer did not recall all vehicles that might have been affected when this issue came to light.’
The DVSA can ask a manufacturer to recall vehicles it believes may be unsafe, but it cannot force them to do so. Alex Neill, of the consumer group Which?, said: ‘This recall raises serious questions about the adequacy of the car recall system.
‘Drivers will be asking why it took so long for BMW to fully recall these potentially dangerous cars in the UK, several years later than recalls in other countries.’
BMW said: ‘We have neither provided incorrect information to the DVSA nor have we been silent on faults. The initial decision on the extent of the recall was made in agreement with the DVSA.
‘We now recognise that there may have been some cases of similar power supply issues in vehicles not covered by the original recall. To reassure customers, we are voluntarily extending the recall.’
The Department of Transport, which oversees the DVSA, said: ‘We are working with the DVSA at ways to strengthen its enforcement powers so it can... protect drivers from unsafe vehicles.’
‘Potentially fatal’