BMW confirms recall of 323,700 cars across Europe

Frankfurt am Main : German luxury carmaker BMW on Wednesday confirmed it would recall 323,700 cars across Europe due to a faulty component that could cause engines to catch fire. Just under a third -- 96,300 -- of the affected vehicles are in Germany, while 75,000 are in Britain, a BMW spokesman told AFP.

Some 23,500 cars in France and 24,700 in Italy are also hit. The Europe-wide recall came after the company was forced to take back more than 100,000 cars in South Korea over the problem.

BMW also had to apologise as more than 30 of its vehicles caught fire this year there. The car giant blamed a faulty component called the exhaust gas recirculation cooler that generated excessive sediment and caused engines to catch fire “in rare cases”.