In a bid to ensure road safety, South Korea will ban driving recalled BMWs that have not received safety checks following dozens of fires the German automaker has blamed on a faulty exhaust gas component.
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South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said the ban will come into effect from August 15 and affects about 20,000 vehicles. German luxury carmaker BMW had earlier confirmed it would recall 323,700 cars across Europe due to a faulty component that could cause engines to catch fire.
Drivers cannot use the cars except for taking them to safety checks. Nearly 40 fires of BMW vehicles this year are suspected to have been caused by engine problems. BMW last month recalled about 106,000 vehicles of 42 different models.
The ministry says 27,000 recalled cars hadn’t received safety checks as of yesterday but it expected a portion of them to be checked before the ban goes into effect. Earlier in the month, BMW had announced a tie-up with Fossil Group to create a line of branded timepieces with the luxury car marque, which will debut in 2019.