Bentley Motors’ European head office in Berlin said Thursday
the recall affects 620 cars in the United States and Canada and 200 in Europe
who added the raised hood ornament as an option on Arnage, Brooklands and Azure
models made between October 2006 and March 2009.
The company says no injuries have been reported but a
Bentley dealer noticed the spring mechanism under the ornament has a tendency
to corrode and might not always function properly.
The fear is that if the hood ornament does not retract, it
could increase the risk of injury to a pedestrian in the event of a crash, the
US Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration said on its website.
“The recall is rather theoretical,” said company spokesman
Richard Durbin in a telephone interview from Crewe, England, where Bentley cars
are produced. “If it were struck by something, we want it to retract as quickly
as possible and in some instances it’s not doing it.” He added the hood
ornament itself is unaffected by corrosion because it is stainless steel.
Bentley, owned by Germany’s Volkswagen AG, will replace the
mechanism free and says the work takes about an hour to complete.
