BMW says 'stop driving our cars immediately'. (New Takata airbag scandal)

BMW says: Stop driving our cars. Right now. Literally: Put down the keys and walk to the nearest taxi, and we’ll pick up the tab - incredibly enough

Listening in the car? Podcast version below

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Here’s some confronting news for you, if you own an ageing 3 Series BMW: In an unprecedented move, BMW Shitsville is urging the owners of 12,663 E46 3 Series BMWs - built between 21 November 1997 and June 30, 2000 to stop driving those vehicles immediately. As in, today. Now.

According to Rod Sims’s henchman - henchperson - at the ACCC, Delia Rickard:

“Because of the critical level of risk, the ACCC urges people to stop driving their vehicle immediately and to contact BMW to arrange to have their vehicle inspected as soon as possible.” - ACCC henchperson Delia Rickard

I’d suggest that conservative corporations and regulators in this sphere, such as BMW and the ACCC respectively, do not use terms like ‘immediately’ and ‘critical level of risk’ frivolously. Safe to assume this message is not clickbait.

New, critically dangerous Takata airbag

A new type of defective Takata airbag has been linked to what the ACCC is calling (quote) “an abnormal pattern of airbag deployments in Australia, Japan and the US”. 

Bottom line: the Takata airbag recall just got slightly bigger, and somewhat more serious. It’s being reported that these specific airbags have been linked to one death and one serious injury here - authorities are being a little cagey about the details surrounding that, however, because the death remains a matter before the coroner.

The ACCC and BMW are collaborating and co-operating on this. There’s no suggestion of any wrongdoing on the part of BMW.

You can check the VIN code online to see if your ageing 3 Series is affected at recall.bmw.com.au, or call 1800 243 675 (this number is a dedicated BMW airbag recall hotline). Here’s a full list of the affected VIN codes. You can also drop into (or call) your local BMW dealer. (In a taxi. Keep the receipt.)

Or, better still:

“BMW will arrange to tow your vehicle to repair facilities for inspection, or send a mobile technician out to your premises or vehicle’s location to inspect the vehicle.” - ACCC

Complete accountability

And here’s my favourite part of this story:

“If your vehicle has been fitted with one of these dangerous airbags, BMW will arrange a loan or hire car or reimbursement for alternative transportation costs until airbag replacement parts are available or until other arrangements are made. You may also wish to discuss the vehicle being purchased back by BMW.” - ACCC

This is an example of rock solid corporate conduct - a rarity in the car industry here, I think you’d agree. 

Here’s the full ACCC statement

These affected vehicles are two decades old, but nobody’s being left out in the cold, and BMW is picking up the tab. You want to see robust commitment to the customer? This is it. Even if that customer is the second, third or fourth owner.

I’m really not sure we’d see the same level of ethical conduct from the Monkey-gassers at the Volkswagen Group, or the three-pronged Swastika specialists at Daimler. So - complete respect for doing the right thing on this occasion. 

It could take the BMW as long as 18 months to replace any defective airbags - and that’s simply gotta be a supply issue. Hence the offer for loan and hire cars, taxi reimbursement, and/or buybacks.

Airbag Vs bomb: here’s the difference

Specifically this issue relates to a Takata NADI driver airbag - it stands for ‘non-azide driver inflator’). It’s a type of airbag not previously linked to the Takata scandal.

Non-azide just means ‘ammonium nitrate’ - specifically a thing called ‘phase stabilized ammonium nitrate’, or PSAN in the trade. Essentially it’s the same stuff AQ nutbags are always trying to make improvised bombs out of, using fertilizer. 

See, when you fire off a detonator into ammonium nitrate it sends a supersonic shockwave radiating out at about 4-5 thousand metres per second. This highly energetic shunt decomposes the ammoniumnitrate, liberating a significant volume of gas, which inflates the airbag very rapidly and saves your life - as long as it doesn’t also channel it’s inner claymore mine and throw the hard mechanical parts of the inflator into your face because it’s defective. And that’s basically the crux of the problem.

I know someone’s going to say this - so I’m gunna de-fuse it now. (See what I did there?) No - an airbag is not a bomb. You are not sitting behind a bomb when you drive a car. Certainly an airbag explosive, and something to be respected, but it’s not a bomb. You are sitting behind an energetic gas generator.

The salient difference between an airbag and a bomb is: Bombs have fuel; airbags don’t. So, a bomb is a three-component system: Detonator, ammonium nitrate and fuel. Airbags have two components: Detonator and ammonium nitrate. The fuel is absent, thankfully.

In a bomb, there’s a large amount of oxygen liberated from the nitrate, and it rapidly oxidises the fuel, which is usually diesel, which contains rather a lot of energy. 

Take a modern torpedo, which is essentially a guided hydrodynamic missile. It’s got fuel to deliver it on tarket, and an explosive warhead to punch through the hull of the target. 

The fuel is typically kerosene (which is closely related to diesel, like - I dunno - a cousin), oxidised by hydrogen peroxide. The thing most people don’t realise is: There’s actually more energy in the kero than there is in the warhead. There’s a lot of energy in the liquid fuels.

I think, therefore, that you could throttle it back a little in the comments on this. You are not sitting in a car surrounded by bombs. You’re sitting there surrounded by lifesaving gas inflators.

What happened to Takata?

This issue not a drill. Globally, 29 people have died and more than 300 have been seriously injured thanks to assholery and ineptitude at Takata. Background briefing here. In Shitsville there was one fatality linked to Takata in Sydney in July 2017 and one serious injury in Darwin a few months earlier.

34 carmakers - at least - are embroiled in this scandal, which is now - incredibly - in its sixth year. It has to be the biggest recall ever - affecting an estimated 100 million vehicles worldwide. Certainly it’s the biggest compulsory recall ever, here in ‘Straya, involving over four million airbags in more than three million vehicles (that’s about one in every four vehicles on the road today).

Takata went tits-up in the middle of 2017 - but its ghost lives on today inside a Chinese owned company which is now called Joyson Safety Systems. Joysone, which used to be called Key Safety Systems paid $1.6 billion (US dollars) for Takata’s assets. The company is based in Michigan.

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