Remember the Audi A3? In the United States, a new recall notice has been issued. We wonder if Malaysian customers are affected.
Recalls in the automotive industry are quite a frequent phenomenon, especially in the United States, where proactive regulatory bodies have consumer interests in mind. Sometimes, these recalls affect models that are sold around the world and it’s up to carmakers to decide if a global recall is necessary. The latest recall to be issued in the United States concerns the Audi A3 family of the previous generation (2015-2020). These cars have poorly made Passenger Occupant Detection Systems (PODS) that may malfunction, causing the passenger side front airbag to not deploy in the event of a crash.
This recall affects over 150,000 of the following car models in the United States:
- Audi A3
- Audi A3 e-tron
- Audi S3
- Audi RS3
Strangely, this is not the first time the Audi A3 has been recalled for this same exact issue. Back in 2019, the National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA) also issued a recall notice and yet customers were still seeing the issue crop up in 2020 after the fix was made. Audi says there may be an additional issue within the PODS system. No injuries or deaths have resulted from this faulty system yet.
As this recall notice was issued by the NHTSA, there is still no word on whether the same models sold in Malaysia are affected. The third-generation Audi A3 family was sold here officially through Audi Malaysia. We had the A3 sedan with either a 1.4 TFSI or 1.8 TFSI engine here since 2014. The facelifted model is available through Audi Malaysia, however, the 4th generation model has not been released locally yet.
We’re not sure if the Audi A3 models sold in the United States were assembled at the same plant as the ones sold in Malaysia. In this generation, the A3 was made in the following factory locations:
- Ingolstadt, Germany
- Győr, Hungary
- Foshan, China
- Aurangabad, India
- São José dos Pinhais, Brazil
- Relizane, Algeria
