The Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU) has alerted of serious problems in the airbag of several car models. The brands affected are Skoda, Audi and BMW. It is estimated that in Spain there are some 300,000 vehicles affected by this anomaly.
The affected airbags, as reported by the OCU, are manufactured by the Tataka company. The main problem, they explain, is that both the airbag and its propellant deteriorate over time, which means that if it goes into action, may dislodge metal fragments that could cause significant injury to occupants.
The OCU estimates that there may be 300,000 affected vehicles. These are the models:
Audi:
-
Audi A4, S4, A4 Cabriolet, S4 Cabriolet, RS4, RS4 Cabriolet, Audi A6, S6, A6 Allroad Quattro and RS6 built between February 23, 2004 and August 2011.
-
Audi A5, Q5, Q5 Hybrid, SQ5 TDI, SQ5 TDI plus built between September 13, 2008 and November 26, 2012.
-
TTS Coupe, TT Coupe, TTS Roadster, TT Roadster, TT RS Coupe, TT RS Roadster, R8 Coupe, R8 Spyder built between September 3, 2014 and February 11, 2017.
BMW:
The same problem has been detected in the airbags of BMW vehicles of practically the entire range (BMW1, BMW 2, BMW 2 Active Tourer/Gran Tourer, BMW 3, BMW 4, BMW 5, BMW 6, BMW X1, X3, X4 , X5, X6 and the BMW M2, M3, M4, X5M) manufactured between February 2012 and December 28, 2014.
A new alert from Safety Gate extends the issue to BMWs manufactured between January 4 and December 30, 2015.
Skoda:
The security breach also affects several Skoda cars, specifically the Skoda Citigo, Roomster, Fabia II, Fabia III, Rapid, Yeti, Kodiaq, Octavia III, Superb II, Superb III models manufactured on various dates between June 1, 2012 and December 15, 2017.
Another alert insists on problems with various versions of Skoda models manufactured between 2013 and 2014.
What should I do if I have one of those cars?
In case this happens, the OCU recommends to the owners of the vehicles that go to an official dealer of the brand.