A handful of probably undertorqued bolts within the rear of your shiny half-million greenback Rolls-Royce Cullinan may very well be endangering the individuals who sit within the again seats. At the very least till the automobile could be inspected by your native Rolls-Royce vendor, the corporate is issuing a stop-use order. The again seat of your 6,000 pound ultra-luxury SUV cannot be used! Many Rolls homeowners have chauffeured drivers, and sit within the again seats themselves, rendering these automobiles utterly ineffective until you really wish to drive your self, and who has time for that?
The recall, NHTSA marketing campaign quantity 26V143000, notes that “a broken seatbelt or unsecured seat again my not adequately restrain the seat occupant” and that this carries a possible “danger of harm throughout a crash.” These are extraordinarily costly, boutique, hand-assembled automobiles, so how does one thing like this even occur? BMW of North America, the distributor for Rolls-Royce within the area, said within the recall that “sure 2020-2026” fashions of Cullinan are affected, and will not have had rear seat fixing bolts correctly tightened. The bolts can loosen over time, damaging the rear seat occupant restraining belt webbing, or permitting the seat again to maneuver if there are massive objects within the hatch.
If you take your Cullinan in to your dealership, the bolts will probably be inspected, tightened, or changed as wanted. Likewise, the protection belt webbing will probably be inspected for harm and changed if vital. A stop-use discover will probably be mailed out to all affected Cullinan homeowners, anticipated to be 102 particular person items. No accidents or crashes have been attributed to the defect as of this reporting, and Rolls-Royce hopes to maintain it that approach.
Should you’re a Cullinan again seat enjoyer, do not danger it. Both sit up entrance with Nigel till the vendor has an opportunity to take a look at your belt bolts, or drive the darned factor your self.
How did they discover it?
Rolls-Royce instructed Carscoops that the defect was initially discovered throughout a routine high quality management examine take a look at drive again in January. Throughout the drive a rattle from the appropriate aspect C-pillar made itself identified. The corporate’s high quality group eliminated components from the automobile till the wrongdoer was discovered. The seat belt retractor bolt itself had loosened, and from there the corporate launched an investigation into the trigger and figuring out what number of automobiles have been affected.
The BMW-owned British automaker started with a radical inspection of each single automobile contained in the partitions of the meeting plant. Only one different automobile was found to have an analogous fault. The corporate says it then started an investigation into historic torque worth information digital information for that bolt in different automobiles. Possibly I am only a non-engineer dummy right here, but when they’ve digital information for particular bolt torque values going again seven years, then why did not the system simply flag particular automobiles that weren’t torqued correctly after they have been nonetheless on the Goodwood manufacturing unit?
In all, 102 items would not sound like a lot. For many automakers that may be a tiny fraction of a single day’s manufacturing. Rolls-Royce produces automobiles on a a lot smaller scale, however the Cullinan is by far the model’s hottest automobile. In 2025 alone Rolls produced 3,291 items for world consumption, and estimates of whole manufacturing since 2018 exceed 20,000 items, so this recall nonetheless solely impacts a reasonably small handful of Cullinans ever constructed. Even so, it appears absurd that such a factor would even have occurred. Is not the British auto trade identified for the utmost in care, high quality, match, and end?
I assume if you cannot take the Rolls-Royce, you may in all probability nonetheless take the Vary Rover or Bentley, proper?
