Until now, the focus has been on frontal airbags in older vehicles using Takata inflators. The new investigation could broaden the issue substantially.
Federal regulators are considering expanding the recall of Takata airbags, already the largest in U.S. history, as the ongoing probe into the problem revealed that more of the supplier’s airbags may have similar problems.
Takata’s recalled millions of driver and passenger airbags – 19 million vehicles in all – because under certain conditions, they may explode when inflated sending pieces of shrapnel into the cabin of the vehicle. The defect has caused eight deaths and 98 injuries.
Now, some tests are showing that side-impact airbags in General Motors and Volkswagen vehicles produced by Takata may also behave in a similar fashion. Mark Rosekind, who heads up the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said he will make a decision about expanding the recall by Thanksgiving.
“That’s part of what the investigation is looking at — whether or not we have to go further,” Rosekind said, according to USA Today.
NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind will make a decision about expanding the Takata recall by Thanksgiving.
In addition, the agency said it may bring on an independent adviser to supervise Takata’s repairs for the defective airbags. Despite millions of dollars and thousands of hours, no investigative team – federal or automaker – has determined what is causing the malfunction.
The only thing that’s been determined with certainty as that the issue is more likely to occur in hot, humid regions where the vehicles have been for five years or longer. Of the 19 million vehicles involved, 14 million came from BMW, Fiat Chrysler, Ford, Honda and Mazda.
(Takata airbag recall could expand to include side-impact bags. For more, Click Here.)
The remaining vehicles are from General Motors, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota and Daimler. There are 6 million that NHTSA considers “high risk” because they fit the profile for being in the most dangerous conditions: hot and humid climates and the vehicles have been there for more than five years.
At a recent hearing, NHTSA regulators detailed the results of Takata’s testing, which showed that 450 out of 115,000 recalled inflators have exploded in lab tests.
Additionally, passenger-side airbags are 10 times more likely, regulators said, to explode. However, they are less likely to cause deaths or injuries because front seat passengers are farther away from the airbag than the driver.
(Click Here for details about growing consumer dissatisfaction with vehicle recalls.)
While the supplier, automakers and regulators have been scrambling to discover the source of the problem, and nearly 2.8 million replacements are being produced monthly – 70% of those are made by suppliers other than Takata – there is another problem: vehicle owners.
Regulators noted that response rates for the fix are very low and officials are considering a national informational campaign to alert vehicle owners about the problem, and more precisely the severity of the issue.
Last month, NHTSA estimated just 4.4 million airbag inflators had been replaced as part of the recall effort. The response level is not particularly surprising since studies show that only 70% of recalls are taken care of by vehicle owners and the number is likely to be lower if they have to wait – as has been the case with Takata’s airbags – for the equipment for the repairs.
(To see more about Honda’s efforts to get warn airbag owners to fix their vehicles, Click Here.)
Earlier this year – and against the advice of Takata – took out an ad campaign urging U.S. vehicle owners with the airbags to head to dealership and get the fix done as soon as possible.