A new lawsuit filed in Orange County, California, alleges that the cupholders in the BMW X7 are defective and cause significant vehicle damage when wet.
According to Courthouse News, the complaint says, "When liquid spills into the cup holder, the wires for the SRS (airbag) control module, which sits directly underneath cup holder, get wet and are damaged, causing damage to the air bags. As a result, the air bags can inadvertently deploy."
An attorney for one of the plaintiffs says he expects the class of plaintiffs to be in the thousands with other BMW models possibly affected as well.
"We believe there are thousands of vehicles which have this same design, which is defective," attorney Hovanes Margarian told Courthouse News. "The way it is arranged the cars are prone to malfunction when either there is a spill in the cupholder or condensation on the cup."
The $5 million lawsuit says while no one has been hurt by the defect, it has resulted in various required repairs up to $2,000.
The complaint says that BMW has long been aware of the cup holder defect and many owners and lessees have communicated with the company to address it.
"Yet, notwithstanding its longstanding knowledge of this defect and such requests, defendant BMW has routinely refused to properly repair the class vehicles," the lawsuit says.
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