It's been a long, long time since I posted to a forum but figured this one would be of interest to others. I've owned my B5 for almost 10 years and have put nearly 200,000km (125k) miles in the driver's seat since I bought it in 2012 @50,000 km (30k miles). I've dealt with all the common issues over this time (many thanks to the frequent posters on this forum and others for providing resources for everyone), but the one I could never figure out was my Airbag light, which has been on for at least 5 years. I've had the code read and cleared multiple times (came back right away every time) - all mechanics said something along the lines of "we won't know what the problem is until we tear the system apart, and it could be very costly once we do that," so I never engaged a professional to dig into it. Based on forum research, I also tried the method of cleaning the electrical connectors under the seats, which was unsuccessful, so I gave up on it and have just been ignoring it.

This week, I received a letter in the mail from Audi Canada regarding "Transport Canada Recall 2020-032 - Safety Recall 69BT - Driver Front Airbag Inflator", which informed me that "Exposure to moisture over time could cause the driver front airbag to not inflate properly in a crash, increasing the risk of injury". At the direction of the letter, I've booked an appointment with my local dealer to have it fixed, and have a few questions for this group:

1) Has anyone ever seen a recall issued for a 20+ year old vehicle? Even a 10+ year old vehicle? To my knowledge, recalls typically show up in the first few years after production, so really curious as to how Audi's body of data on this problem hit some sort of threshold to issue a recall this late in the game, and how many vehicles they'd even expect to perform this recall on

2) Has anyone else here received the same/similar notice, and had the work performed? Realizing that it's a Transport Canada Recall, unlikely that the same was issued in the U.S. or Europe, but curious nonetheless

Mainly looking forward to seeing the reaction of the service advisors at Audi Downtown Toronto when I drop it off, as I'm sure they haven't serviced a B5 any time recently.

 

I got that letter here in Australia for my car. At this stage the recall is voluntary and you do not have to do it. I did not do my inspection as if the car failed it they do not fix the car due to age and limitation to parts but Audi will simply pay you the average sell price or something which is next to nothing considering how much I have put into it.

if your dealer states it will be fixed if failed inspection then good do it, if they say no then I wouldn’t do it. It seems very sus and feels like this is a way to phase out older generation cars. It’s been 20 years and now they find these faults.

The Audi dealer to me when I said it’s voluntary was like but your putting yourself in danger. What about the last 20 years?? Are Audi going to pay compensation for putting our lives at risk as they say for all those years but now suddenly they care and want to get rid of these older cars.

Regards,
George

 

^^ What George said.

I know some people who have taken out their airbag to avoid the risk of metal flying and hitting them in the face in the event of an accident.

 

My daughter just bought a 1998 A4 Avant with the 2.8 V6. She also got the recall notice 69BT and made an appointment at the (sorta) local Audi dealer. I took it in as she was away at school and the dealer took care of everything (even threw in a free inspection so we could reset the interval warning on the odometer). I'd say they don't have an issue with 20+ year old vehicles if that's the case.
*edit: we're located in Colorado, so the recall is effective in the US as well.