BMWNA and NHTSA Agree on MINI Noncompliance Recall

Official Release: BMW of North America, LLC (BMW NA) today announced it has entered into a Consent Order with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) which resolves issues raised in NHTSA’s Special Order issued to BMW NA on September 28, 2015 in regards to its execution of a MINI noncompliance recall campaign. The Consent Order also includes an admission by BMW NA that it did not comply in a timely fashion with various reporting requirements under the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act.
Pursuant to the Consent Order, BMW NA has agreed to make a $10 million cash payment to NHTSA and to spend $10 million on enhancing internal processes and technologies to more rapidly detect emerging safety-related issues and developing increased measures to maximize recall completion rates. An additional $20 million shall be in the form of a deferred amount and held in abeyance, pending BMW NA’s satisfactory completion of the obligations in the Consent Order.
BMW NA has also agreed to execute certain performance obligations to improve its recall execution and reporting processes and will work with a consultant to develop best practices to do so. The Consent Order will remain in place for two years subject to NHTSA’s right to extend for an additional year.
The company is committed to further improving its recall processes to better serve its customers. BMW NA respects the role of NHTSA and looks forward to working with them to develop solutions for the future.
5 Comments
<p>10 million here, 20 million there, for something thats tiny compared to Volkswagon’s problems. When do we see the tab on those violations?</p>
<p>While there haven’t been any injuries or fatalities due to the issue or side impact protection situation, I don’t consider it “tiny”.</p>
<p>While the NHTSA would play some role in the investigation and fines to VW on the emissions scandal, it will more likely be from the EPA due to the Clean Air Act. Typically fines from the EPA are among the highest leveled by a US Government agency against Corporations.</p>
<p>I have a March 2015 build F56 Cooper S and I haven’t received a letter from MINI USA or BMW on the side impact protection issue. Has anyone received a notice or letter yet?</p>
<p>I don’t mean to minimize the significance of this to personal safety, but that said the scale and matter of deception carried out by VW still renders this problem “tiny” by comparison.</p>
<p>Part that isn’t included in the above piece is (as stated by the NHTSA):</p>
<p>“In July 2015, NHTSA conducted a second crash test at the corrected
weight rating on a vehicle with the additional side-impact protection,
and the vehicle again failed. At that time, NHTSA learned that BMW had
not launched the service campaign it had agreed to conduct.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nhtsa.gov/About+NHTSA/Press+Releases/2015/nhtsa-bmw-fined-$40-million-12212015" rel="nofollow ugc">http://www.nhtsa.gov/About+NHTSA/Press+Releases/2015/nhtsa-bmw-fined-$40-million-12212015</a></p>
<p>(FYI,it’s NHTSA, not NHSTA as shown in title of above article)</p>
<p>How about making all TSB’s openly available to the public rather than keeping them behind subscription paywalls like alldata</p>