May 2016 Vehicle Recalls: What You Need to Know
This report covers every vehicle safety recall campaign that appeared in the NHTSA public database during May 2016. Our daily ingest pulled 2 campaigns from 2 different brands this month. Below is a plain-language breakdown of what was recalled, which brands were most affected, and what to do if a listed vehicle is in your driveway.
The brand with the most campaigns this month was BMW, with 1 campaign, followed by Subaru at 1. A high campaign count for a single brand in a single month isn't inherently a quality signal. It often reflects a single defect rolled out across multiple model years or configurations, or proactive self-reporting after an internal investigation. The more useful question for an owner is whether any of these campaigns actually apply to the vehicle in your driveway, which depends on the VIN.
The most common component category in this month's recalls was Steering, appearing in 1 campaign. Clusters like this tend to come from either a shared supplier component used across several automakers or from a single manufacturer discovering a pattern across multiple model lines and filing campaigns together. Either way, it's worth a closer look if your vehicle sits in that category.
Of the 2 campaigns indexed for May 2016, 2 (100%)contain language about fire, crash, injury, or death in the consequence field. Those are the campaigns we've flagged as "Most Critical" below. A critical flag doesn't necessarily mean anything has happened to the vehicles on the road (NHTSA often describes potentialconsequences in the same language), but it's a reasonable filter when you're prioritizing which open recall to schedule first.
Everything that follows is drawn directly from NHTSA's public recall feed with no editorial alteration of the underlying campaign details. The grouping, totals, and "most critical" filter are computed live from that dataset by RecallScanner. If you want to verify any specific entry, the NHTSA campaign number links out to the original government record.
Top Components Affected
Most Critical Recalls
BMW of North America, LLC (BMW) is recalling certain model year 2011-2017, X3 sDrive28i, X3 xDrive28i and X3 xDrive35i, vehicles manufactured July 2, 2010 to April 14, 2016, 2015-2017 X3 xDrive28d vehicles manufactured March 10, 2014 to March 31, 2016, and 2015-2017 x4 xDrive28i, X4 xDrive35i and X4 xDriveM40i vehicles manufactured March3, 2014 to April 15, 2016. The affected vehicles have lower anchor bars for securing child restraint seats that may become damaged when using the European-ISOFIX-type, rigid-style connector, child restraint system.
Subaru of America, Inc. (Subaru) is recalling certain model year 2016-2017 Legacy and Outback vehicles manufactured February 29, 2016, to May 6, 2016. The steering column on the affected vehicles may have been improperly machined, and as a result, turning the steering wheel may have no effect on the direction of the wheels.
Recalls by Brand
BMW1 recall
CHILD SEAT:LATCH STRAP
Subaru1 recall
STEERING:COLUMN
What Should You Do?
- Check your VIN to see if your specific vehicle is affected
- Contact your dealer to schedule a free recall repair
- Sign up below to get notified about future recalls for your vehicle
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