New Takata Airbag Recall ?

[oldskewel]

I'm still getting notifications asking me to take my 2001 in. It still seems to me that since I have a non-sport steering wheel, I don't have this problem. And even if I did have a sport steering wheel, if its airbag had never been replaced, it would not have this problem. I believe this to be true based on reading the letters BMW has been sending me over the past few years.

I know I could be mis-reading between the lines.

But I can't get anyone to admit that. They just want me to bring the car in. Easy for them, not so easy for me. I can understand also that telling people they are unaffected if they have a non-sport wheel may be dangerous, since surely some people won't know what that means. So I understand why they're doing this, but I still don't want to waste the effort.

Is there anyone out there with a non-sport (4 spokes vs. 3) steering wheel that has actually had an airbag replaced under this recall?

And "replaced" means they took the old one out and put a new one in. Just because you took the car in and the service sales guy tells you they "did the recall work" is not convincing to me - they might mean they inspected, noticed the non-sport steering wheel, checked you off the list and want you to feel better about wasting a few hours on a needless exercise.

[Zulu95]

I called about the'01 4 spoke wheel. "We cannot confirm if your airbag is in the recall until we actually see it." I took it in after umteen warning letters and the patient return with a clean bill of health for the AB but needing $700 of oil filter housing gasket required and $2300 worth of oil pan gasket old and most likely will start leaking.
A week later the '13 was in for the passenger side AB recall and came out with a warning it needed the $2300 oil pan gasket replaced because it was leaking. (Strange it was OK when my indy was under there recently.)
I think the whole thing is a scam that BMW NA is using to drum up business for their dealers.

[Bdc101]

My four spoke non sport wheel was inspected and I was told it was fine.

[andrewwynn]

So I finally had a chance to dig into this and have found out this for 2001 model: the recall only really applies if your car has a REPLACED driver side airbag.

On the four spoke wheel you loosen the two T30 screws holding the airbag to the wheel center and simply pull the airbag off the wheel and turn it enough to read the brand label.

Checked my wife's today. Not Takata; OE bag no need to go to dealer. Took 5 minutes.

I didn't disconnect the battery because I wasn't planning to unplug the bag. I already had an appointment to have it replaced if it was Takata but now I have 3-4 more hours in that day.

I don't know what years the faulty airbaigs were produced but you only need to be concerned if you are getting the alerts from BMW.

If you got the alert, take your airbag out and look at the label. If it's Takata, THEN go to bmw.

[amancuso]

Originally Posted by Crowz

That's why I have a huge stack of recall notices for that car right now. I may get it done one day but its not high on my todo list.

E70? Just say no.

[andrewwynn]

FYI my OE bag had a YELLOW label so yellow doesn't mean bad.



This however is a Takata inflator. The label is a full circle mine was not. I forgot to write down the brand.


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[oldskewel]

Update ...

As I said earlier, from reading the recall notices, and trying to fill in the gaps that they withhold, I inferred that although they were telling everyone to come in, that you would only actually need a replacement if BOTH of these were true:
1 - you have a sport steering wheel
AND
2 - the airbag in that steering wheel was replaced, and replaced with a Takata

Despite efforts in the past to get anyone at BMW to confirm this, I got nothing. And I did not waste my time following the herd into the dealership as they wanted me to.

A few days ago, they got my attention again by sending me a FedEx letter saying they'd come to my house to do it if needed. I was intrigued that they seemed to be valuing my time closer to how I value it.

So I had to go to a website
https://www.recallapps.com/app/bmwusa-sw/Registration?$activepanel=EventConsignee

and enter all my info and:
photo of VIN
photo of steering wheel

My car is a 2001 3.0i, with a non-sport / 4-spoke steering wheel.

Based on the photos, they let me know that I did not need the recall.

So as I had thought all along, the dealer inspection recall service amounted to looking at my steering wheel and confirming it was not a sport wheel. Had it been a sport wheel, they would probably have actually needed to remove something to inspect.

[Bottomfeeder]

To add to oldskewel's post, I took my 02 X5 3.0 in to the dealer for the Takata airbag recall last week after ignoring the notices for some time. For what it's worth, the dealer told me essentially that (at least for my 02) the only way to tell whether or not it is a Takata is to visibly confirm.

As it turns out, mine was OEM and didn't need replacement. Took a couple of hours out of my day to find this out, but at least now I know. And I got to load up on that good BMW dealership free coffee. :-)

I also have an 05 X5 3.0 that apparently is not affected by the recall. Go figure.

Chris

[X5M-ISH]

You're all aware of the separate airbag recall? The one I am referring to affects the same Takata brand, but is for the passenger side front seat weight sensor. This sensor notifies the DME that there is a passenger and to deploy the airbags during a crash.


This bulletin is ongoing and primarily affects face lift models. Mine (06 4.8is) was replaced over the course of a day. The techs need to remove the passenger seat from the chassis and strip off the entire leather seat cover to get to the guts. Once this has been performed you will see the updated information on websites like CarFax.

[oldskewel]

Originally Posted by Bottomfeeder

... the dealer told me essentially that (at least for my 02) the only way to tell whether or not it is a Takata is to visibly confirm. ...

When they asked me to upload the photo of the steering wheel, there was nothing specific at all requested. So I think "visibly confirm" by a highly trained BMW factory certified master technician involves counting the spokes and determining whether there are 3 or 4.

... since that determines sport vs. non-sport. And I fully understand why they don't want to trust the average BMW owner to know which steering wheel they have. For example, the PO of my car thought it had the sport package since it had 19" wheels, but truth is it's a non-sport package with 19" wheels.