Luxury car manufacturer Bentley has recalled 1,892 units of the 2019-2020 Bentley Bentayga for a fuel leak issue from the fuel connector line which could potentially result in a fuel fire. The recall population has been estimated based on the start of production of the affected vehicles until a robust implementation has been taken on the production stage rectifying the fault.
The affected part can be identified by a geometrically aligned installation on the components and only 0.2 % of the total Bentley vehicles are affected by the faulty lines. The production dates of the vehicle with the fuel connector line is between 26 July 2018 to 15 January 2020.
The compromised integrity of the fuel connector could lead to fuel leaking detected by the odour of fuel inside the cabin. Combined with an ignition source, the leaking fuel line could lead to a risk of fire inside the engine bay. In an isolated instance, the leaking fuel line could also start a fire inside the engine bay due to high engine temperatures.
The first instance of the report was detected on a customer vehicle, in July 2018, as smell of fuel was reported by the driver. The cause of the defect at a later date was identified as material softening due to elevated temperatures above the design operating specification limit and a technical solution to rectify the fault by changing the material was commenced by the Group engineering.
Bentley will be contacting all the vehicle owners affected by the recall and notify them on arrangements to make an appointment with an authorised Bentley dealer. The fuel line including the quick connector will be replaced with a new part without any cost to the customer. According to the brand the job will take approximately 1 hour to be completed. The newly designed remedy component is located in the fuel line that sits between the fuel tank and the high-pressure fuel pump located in the engine compartment.
In the Indian market, Bentley has sold only a handful of Bentley Bentayga’s here in India and if it comes under the Asian recall the brand would have already contacted the owners for the fault.
