ARC Hybrid Airbags in BMW Vehicles May Injure or Kill Class Action

ARC Automotive, Inc. makes airbags. This class action brings suit against ARC, BMW Manufacturing Co., LLC, and BMW of North America, LLC, alleging that BMW installed in airbags its vehicles that are made by ARC and that have hybrid inflators that are defective and subject to inadequate quality control, leading to potential injuries and even death when the airbags inflate.

The Nationwide Class for this action is all persons who leased or bought a class vehicle in the US. A South Carolina Class has also been defined for all persons in South Carolina who leased or bought a class vehicle. The class vehicles are all those leased or bought in the US that have hybrid inflators manufactured by ARC and may include the following:

• 2014-2017 BMW i3
• 2014-2017 BMW Mini Cooper 2 Door
• 2015-2017 BMW Mini Cooper 4 Door
• 2016-2017 BMW Mini Cooper Convertible
• 2016-2017 BMW X1 SAV
• 2014-2017 BMW X5 SAV
• 2015-2017 BMW X6 SAV

Airbags are designed to inflate quickly, to prevent those in a vehicle from impact with hard objects such as the windshield, dashboard, and steering column during a collision. Airbags must therefore inflate fast enough to inflate quickly and immediately, but carefully enough ot to cause other injuries to those who are riding in the vehicle.

The inflators for the ARC airbags are considered to be hybrids, the complaint alleges in that they use “both a propellant explosive and stored compressed gasses to rapidly inflate the air bag.

The inflators have donut-shaped housings comprised of three parts: an upper pressure vessel, a lower pressure vessel, and a center support. These three parts are joined together by a welding technique known as friction welding.

During the welding process, flash is created. The complaint alleges, “Controlled and consistent flash creation is a normal and expected by-product of the friction welding process.” However, if certain parameters are not met during the process, the complaint alleges that too much flash is created. According to the complaint, this excess flash is a violation of federal regulations, “which requires that welded seams must be properly aligned and welded by a method that provides clean, uniform joints with adequate penetration.”

When the airbag deploys, the complaint alleges, the excess flash can create problems: “If the dislodged weld flash is not large enough to block the gas exit orifice, the dislodged weld flash will exit the inflator.” If it is large enough to block the orifice, this will increase the pressure in the inflator housing which will expand and deform the donut shape into something more like a ball, until it ruptures. “When the inflator housing ruptures,” the complaint alleges, “internal components of the inflator are propelled into the passenger compartment which can injure or kill the occupants.”

The complaint alleges that ARC has been aware of the problem with its hybrid inflators since at least 2015 and that it has not given its full cooperation to an investigation of the airbags by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Automobile
Tags: Defective Airbags, Defective Automobile