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According to a report the Audi posted Wednesday on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website, the automaker is recalling almost 102,000 A4 and S4 sedans and Allroad station wagons from the 2013-15 model years because a software problem could cause the front airbag to malfunction.
The reason for this measure is due to the fact that if the above mentioned models were involved in a side-impact crash, the side airbags would deploy properly, but that if the vehicle continued to move and was involved in a secondary front-end impact, the front airbags might not work. Audi said it discovered the problem during “routine testing and ongoing field observations” and was not aware of any accidents or injuries related to the issue.
Dealers will update an improperly programmed air bag control module to fix the problem sometime this month. No crashes or injuries have been reported in the U.S. or Europe, an Audi spokesman said. But the company is checking a small number of cases in Europe to see if they are linked to air bag programming.
“We are looking into a number of accidents to see if the air bag was involved,” an Audi spokesman said back in October.
The problem was discovered when tests were being completed back in August, according to documents posted by U.S. safety regulators. Almost a dozen global automakers have recalled millions of cars in connection with the Takata air bag, including Audi rival BMW AG , which has recalled 1.6 million cars. However Audi said the airbags were not made by Japan’s Takata Corp, which is in the middle of a number of recalls over air bags that could spray shrapnel at occupants.
The recall is expected to begin Nov. 11.
Taking into consideration Toyota’s recent recall as well, one can easily say that this year is far from being a good one, at least from a car manufacture’s point of view. The Japanese automaker’s recent recall of 5,850 cars, mostly in the United States, for possible steering problems, has also caused quite a fuss.
All in all, during this current year, over 50 million vehicles have already been recalled to dealers because of safety issues such as faulty ignitions or malfunctions resulting in accidents and fatalities.
