Audi A4, Audi A8, model years 1997 to 1998. Filed by Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. and reported to NHTSA on 1 July 2022. 28,624 vehicles potentially affected.
What the notice says Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. (Audi) is recalling certain 1998 Audi A8 and 1997-1998 Audi A4 vehicles equipped with Non-Azide Driver air bag Inflators (NADI) that do not contain phase stabilized ammonium nitrate (PSAN) propellant. Due to a manufacturing issue, the NADI inflator may absorb moisture, causing the …
Is your vehicle included? Check with your VIN at NHTSA, or ask a dealer. This page is an independent copy of the notice, kept so you can see what changed after it was published. It is not the authority, and the authority’s own text is the one to act on.
Audi's own number for this recall: 69BT. That is the number on the owner letter and on the dealer paperwork. 22V471 is the number NHTSA gave the same campaign, and the number this page is filed under. They are one recall, written two ways.
What owners ask about this recall
- Which vehicles does recall 22V471 cover?
- Audi A4, Audi A8, model years 1997-1998.
- What is wrong with them?
- Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. (Audi) is recalling certain 1998 Audi A8 and 1997-1998 Audi A4 vehicles equipped with Non-Azide Driver air bag Inflators (NADI) that do not contain phase stabilized ammonium nitrate (PSAN) propellant.
- What can happen if it is not put right?
- The inflator could explode during air bag deployment, resulting in metal fragments striking the driver or other occupants. An underinflated air bag may not properly protect the occupant. These scenarios increase the risk of serious injury or death.
- Is there a fix yet?
- Yes, and it is free. Dealers will replace the driver's air bag inflator with an alternative inflator of a different design, free of charge. Owner notification letters were sent September 21, 2021. Owners may contact Audi customer service at 1-800-253-2834. Audi's number for this recall is 69BT.
- What should I do now?
- Check your own vehicle by its VIN with NHTSA, which is the record to act on. Audi calls this recall 69BT, which is the number on the owner letter and the dealer paperwork.
Answered from the register this site holds. NHTSA is the record to act on.
What the authority says can happen if this is not fixed: “The inflator could explode during air bag deployment, resulting in metal fragments striking the driver or other occupants. An underinflated air bag may not properly protect the occupant. These scenarios increase the risk of serious injury o…”
affected
in the notice
caught
| Campaign | 22V471 |
|---|---|
| Filed by | Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. |
| System at fault | Air Bags:Frontal:Driver Side:Inflator Module |
| Reported to NHTSA | 1 July 2022 |
| Model years | 1997-1998 |
| Vehicles named | AUDI A4, AUDI A8 |
What the notice says today
The consequence
The inflator could explode during air bag deployment, resulting in metal fragments striking the driver or other occupants. An underinflated air bag may not properly protect the occupant. These scenarios increase the risk of serious injury or death.
The remedy
Dealers will replace the driver's air bag inflator with an alternative inflator of a different design, free of charge. Owner notification letters were sent September 21, 2021. Owners may contact Audi customer service at 1-800-253-2834. Audi's number for this recall is 69BT. The vehicles in this recall were mistakenly omitted from recall 20V-056. All vehicle owners have already been notified by mail and informed that the remedy is available.
What it said before
This campaign is in the register but not yet in the dated wording archive, so we cannot yet say whether its text has moved. It enters the archive on the next pass.
This is one of 846 notices in the record whose component field names air bags. Across that group the median wait before owners were written to was 46 days.
Last checked . No change has been recorded in the wording.
The same recall in other countries
This campaign carries a manufacturer code that also appears in another country’s register, which means the same defect was recalled there too.
- Canada: Transport Canada recall 2020032, recorded 29 January 2020 (2 years before the American filing)
- European Union: Safety Gate alert A12/00849/20, published 12 June 2020, raised by Germany (the Commission’s own page) (2 years before the American filing)
Matched on 69BT, the manufacturer’s own number for this campaign, which is the only field the registers share. Exact match, nothing paired on brand and date. The two dates are adjacent instruments rather than the same one, so a difference of a day or two means nothing.
How often the two countries file on the same day · The European alerts
The models named here, across their whole recall history
How to cite this record
Quoting the wording on this page means quoting a version, so the date belongs in the citation:
CarsMultiverse, recall 22V471, wording as read on 16 September 2026. https://carsmultiverse.com/recall/22v471/
The cross-border matches used on this site are deposited as a citable dataset: doi:10.5281/zenodo.22087136. The recall wording itself is published by the national authority named above and is theirs, not ours.
The recall record and its wording are published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and are US Government public domain. The dated archive, the comparison and any before-and-after above are CarsMultiverse. How fresh every engine behind this page is, is public on the status page. To check a specific vehicle, use NHTSA’s own VIN lookup.
Other Audi notices we hold
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- 26V240: 2019-2023 Audi E-Tron Quattro, 2020-2023 Audi E-Tron Sportback, 2024 Q8 E-Tron, Q8 Sportback E-Tron, SQ8 E-Tron, and SQ8 Sportback E-Tron
- 26V209: 2026 Q3
- 26V125: 2019 Audi Q8, Audi A7, and Audi A6
- 25V900: 2019-2026
- 25V899: 2025 SQ6 E-Tron, SQ6 Sportback E-Tron, Q6 Sportback E-Tron, A6, A5, A6 Sportback E-Tron, Q6 E-Tron, S5, and S6 Sportback E-Tron
- 25V294: 2022-2024 Q5 Quattro and Q5 Sportback Quattro
- 25V227: 2022-2023 RS E-TRON GT and E-TRON GT
All 59 Audi campaigns we hold · Every manufacturer in the record
The fingerprint of this notice
We take a SHA-256 of each of the three blocks of text the authority publishes and keep the first eight characters. As we last read campaign 22V471 on 23 August 2026, they were:
- Defect summary
f5140fc6 - Consequence
a9f2187f - Remedy
91f90403
We first read this notice on 21 August 2026. It has not moved since. If it ever does, these characters will not match, and the change will be dated here.
The wording we hold for 22V471 · how the whole register is watched
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