A handful of potentially undertorqued bolts in the rear of your shiny half-million dollar Rolls-Royce Cullinan could be endangering the people who sit in the back seats. At least until the vehicle can be inspected by your local Rolls-Royce dealer, the company is issuing a stop-use order. The back seat of your 6,000 pound ultra-luxury SUV can’t be used! Many Rolls owners have chauffeured drivers, and sit in the back seats themselves, rendering these vehicles completely useless unless you actually want to drive yourself, and who has time for that?
The recall, NHTSA campaign number 26V143000, notes that “a damaged seatbelt or unsecured seat back my not adequately restrain the seat occupant” and that this carries a potential “risk of injury during a crash.” These are extremely expensive, boutique, hand-assembled vehicles, so how does something like this even happen? BMW of North America, the distributor for Rolls-Royce in the region, stated in the recall that “certain 2020-2026” models of Cullinan are affected, and may not have had rear seat fixing bolts properly tightened. The bolts can loosen over time, damaging the rear seat occupant restraining belt webbing, or allowing the seat back to move if there are large items in the hatch.
When you take your Cullinan in to your dealership, the bolts will be inspected, tightened, or replaced as needed. Likewise, the safety belt webbing will be inspected for damage and replaced if necessary. A stop-use notice will be mailed out to all affected Cullinan owners, expected to be 102 individual units. No injuries or crashes have been attributed to the defect as of this reporting, and Rolls-Royce hopes to keep it that way.
If you’re a Cullinan back seat enjoyer, don’t risk it. Either sit up front with Nigel until the dealer has a chance to look at your belt bolts, or drive the darned thing yourself.
How did they find it?
Rolls-Royce told Carscoops that the defect was initially found during a routine quality control check test drive back in January. During the drive a rattle from the right side C-pillar made itself known. The company’s quality team removed parts from the vehicle until the culprit was found. The seat belt retractor bolt itself had loosened, and from there the company launched an investigation into the cause and determining how many vehicles were affected.
The BMW-owned British automaker began with a thorough inspection of every single vehicle inside the walls of the assembly plant. Just one other vehicle was discovered to have a similar fault. The company says it then began an investigation into historic torque value data electronic records for that bolt in other vehicles. Maybe I’m just a non-engineer dummy here, but if they have electronic records for specific bolt torque values going back seven years, then why didn’t the system just flag specific cars that weren’t torqued properly when they were still at the Goodwood factory?
In all, 102 units doesn’t sound like much. For most automakers that would be a tiny fraction of a single day’s production. Rolls-Royce produces vehicles on a much smaller scale, but the Cullinan is by far the brand’s most popular vehicle. In 2025 alone Rolls produced 3,291 units for global consumption, and estimates of total production since 2018 exceed 20,000 units, so this recall still only affects a pretty small handful of Cullinans ever built. Even so, it seems absurd that such a thing would even have occurred. Isn’t the British auto industry known for the utmost in care, quality, fit, and finish?
I guess if you can’t take the Rolls-Royce, you can probably still take the Range Rover or Bentley, right?
