FRANKFURT, GERMANY—On January 16, German automakers Volkswagen AG and BMW AG announced that they were recalling more than 500,000 vehicles due to possible technical problems.
A spokesman for Volkswagen, Europe's largest car manufacturer by sales, said that the company had begun a recall of 299,000 vehicles with diesel engines in October 2011 due to possible problems caused by cracks in the fuel-injection system. VW reported that it had notified the owners of the vehicles; however, it did not say how many had been recalled to date.
The cracks can occur in VW's Golf, Passat, Jetta, Tiguan and other models built since 2009; furthermore, the company's Audi, Skoda, and Seat brands are also affected.
BMW, the planet’s largest luxury car manufacturer, announced that it was recalling 235,000 vehicles of its Mini brand world-wide due to a possible malfunction of an electric water pump that cools the turbo charger. A BMW spokesman said that there have not been any reported accidents related to the possible malfunction.
The comments follow a filing by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which reported that BMW will recall 88,911 Mini and Mini Cooper cars in the U.S. According to the NHTSA filing, the auxiliary water pump that cools the turbo charger has an electronic circuit board that can malfunction and overheat. As a result, the circuit board may smolder and possibly catch fire. BMW plans to notify the owners of the vehicles; dealers will replace the water pump free of charge. The recall is expected to start next month.
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