[THE INVESTOR] The Transportation Ministry has concluded on Sept. 22 that a previously identified fuel leak in BMW vehicles may be the cause of mysterious fires that have broken out in some of the vehicles.

Both the German carmaker and the ministry had identified a possible fuel leak in certain model years BMW vehicles, which led to a recall of over 1,700 BMW cars sold here.




BMW Korea, the local importer of BMW cars, however, had insisted the fuel leak could not have been the cause of the fires, claiming the area holding leaked fuel did not have high enough temperatures to start a fire.

An additional study by the state-run Vehicle Safety Research Institute has revealed the leaked fuel could in fact shift to areas with high enough temperatures to start a fire, the ministry said in a press release.

With the latest finding, BMW Korea has agreed to re-announce its recall of the affected vehicles and specify the possibility of fire caused by leaked fuel, it added.

The recall affects 1,751 units of 13 vehicle models, including the BMW 320d, produced between June 25 and Sept. 3 of 2014, the same number of cars initially recalled earlier in the year for the fuel leak. Of those, 1,165 cars or 66.5 percent have already been recalled and repaired, according to the ministry.

(theinvestor@heraldcorp.com)