Volkswagen's China JV recalls cars over air bag issue

Reuters
The VolksWagen logo is seen on their XL 1 car during the media day at the Paris Mondial de l'Automobile, October 3, 2014. REUTERS/Jacky Naegelen

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - FAW-Volkswagen Automobile Ltd, a joint venture of Volkswagen AG and a Chinese state-owned carmaker, will recall 270,635 Audi cars in China to fix a problem with air bag software, China's quality watchdog said on Wednesday. A spokeswoman at Audi China said the move was part of a global recall involving 850,000 cars announced last week. Some of the cars in the recall have software configuration problems in the air bag control systems, which mean the air bags fail to open in certain circumstances in collisions, the Chinese regulator said in a statement. The Audi recall comes less than two weeks after Volkswagen said it would call back more than 580,000 cars in China to fix a possible suspension defect. The latest recall involves 4,692 imported Audi A4 all-road cars and 265,943 China-made Audi A4L cars produced between May 25, 2012 and Oct. 22, 2014, China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in the statement on its website. (Reporting by Samuel Shen and Kazunori Takada; Editing by Miral Fahmy and Jane Baird)