BMW has announced plans to expand its production capacity and introduce three new car models to the Chinese market in a bid to attract middle-class buyers. (Photo : Reuters)
United States regulators are setting their sights to German automaker BMW. Regulators claim that BMW is not taking appropriate actions regarding the recall of its Mini brand after the car did not pass federal crash test standards.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a statement claiming that BMW have been slow in fixing affected car models.
According to Auto Blog, the NHTSA claim that more than 30,000 Mini Cooper and Mini Cooper S from model years 2014 and 2015 along with the 2015 John Cooper Works did not pass the crash test.
Based on the document posted by the NHTSA on its website, the 2014 Mini Two-Door Hardtop Cooper did not protect the female dummy in a side-impact crash test made in October 2014. In December 2014, BMW issued a recall order and promised to launch a service campaign in order to add padding to the car's rear side panel.
The posted documents added that the campaign was never done and BMW did not inform the NHTSA about its failure.
According to CTV News, following the failure of the Mini Two-Door Hardtop Cooper to pass federal crash tests, the NHTSA tested the 2015 Cooper S. The car also failed the side impact crash tests and BMW agreed to issue a recall order for the 2014 and 2015 Cooper S models.
The NHTSA said it plans to delve deeper into the issue and wants to uncover whether BMW deliberately ignore to take necessary actions in order to remedy the crash problem.
The NHTSA documents reads, "It appears from a review of NHTSA's databases that BMW may have failed to submit recall communications to NHTSA in a timely manner."
If investigations found out that BMW failed to act about the safety problems, the company could face paying a hefty fine of up to $35 million.
