BERLIN, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- A new driving ban imposed by South Korean authorities on 20,000 defective BMW diesel vehicles is unlikely to happen in Germany, the Munich-based car maker told Xinhua on Tuesday.
Speaking to Xinhua, BMW spokesperson Jochen Frey expressed confidence that potential defects which had also been identified in the exhaust gas recycling system of more 96,000 diesel vehicles in Germany would not lead to the enactment of similar driving bans.
BMW recently began to inspect affected vehicles in Germany as a precautionary measure. Frey noted, however, that the inspections were initiated voluntarily and that the reasons that at least 30 BMW diesel vehicles had caught fire in South Korea since 2016 remained unclear.
"There can be many reasons for a fire to break out," Frey said. He explained that the root cause of these incidents is the EGR module and a combination of several factors including leakage of coolant, high accumulated mileage and an operation in which the bypass valve is open. He further argued that the specific concentration of incidents in South Korea is still under investigation and could have been caused by a number of factors. He made clear: No specific regional driving style is the root cause for an increased number of failures of the EGR module.
According to the German car maker, the defect rate for BMW exhaust gas recycling systems is relatively low at a global average of 0.12 percent. The number of incidents in which fires have broken out is much lower than the number of defects.
Nevertheless, South Korean Transport Minister Kim Hyun-mee announced an outright ban on around 20,000 BMW diesel vehicles on Tuesday. The Korean ministry of transport urged vehicle owners to comply with the ban which would become active as soon as vehicle owners received a corresponding email from the government. BMW previously agreed to recall 106,000 vehicles for inspection and issued a formal apology for the incidents to the public in South Korea.
According to BMW, the fires were caused by leakages in the exhaust gas recycling system which is designed to lower the nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions of diesel vehicles. BMW subsequently ordered a recall of a further 323,700 diesel vehicles in Europe which may be afflicted by the same issue.
A spokesperson for the luxury car maker told press earlier that the exact costs created by the recall were still unknown, but suggested that replacing the exhaust system module in question came with a price tag of a few hundred euros. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper estimated that BMW could face expenses of 160 million euros (182 million U.S. dollars) from the European recall alone.
Speaking to Xinhua on Tuesday, BMW said it was making good progress on resolving the situation. A total of 79,000 out of 106,000 vehicles have already been inspected so far.
