Honda Expands Airbag Defect Recall To Include Vehicles In California

(mr.hodgson)

If you live in California and you drive a Honda vehicle, listen up, because the car maker expanded its recall for potentially faulty airbag deployment issues by nearly 500,000 in your area.

The expanded recall, which affects only vehicles in California, brings the total number of Honda vehicles with the issue to nearly 3 million, reports USA Today.

In all, more than 10 million vehicles from at least eight manufacturers have been recalled since last year because of an issue with the passenger- and driver-side Takata-produced airbags.

According to a previous National Highway Traffic Safety Administration notice [PDF] on the same issue, a defect in the frontal airbags could produce excessive internal pressure causing the inflator to rupture upon deployment. At times, pieces of the airbag module can forcefully fly out striking occupants.

That was exactly why the expanded recall was initiated. USA Today reports that a piece of shrapnel was released during the deployment of an airbag in a 2005 Honda Accord in California.

The expanded recall to replace passenger-side airbags includes model year 2003-2005 Honda Accords, Civics, CR-Vs, Elements, Pilots, Acura MDX, and 2005 Acura RLs, as well as model year 2003-2004 Odysseys.

Additionally, the recall was expanded to replace driver’s side front airbags in 2001 to 2007 Accords with four-cylinder engines, 2001-2002 Accords with V-6 engines, 2001 to 2005 Civics, 2002-to 2006 CR-Vs, 2003 to 2011 Elements, 2002 to 2004 Odysseys, 2003 to 2007 Pilots, 2006 Ridgelines, 2003 to 2006 Acura MDXs and 2002 to 2003 Acura TLs and CLs.

Prior to the addition of California, recalls were announced in areas with high humidity including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Since the airbag issue first came to light in 2013, BMW, Mazda, Toyota, Honda and Nissan have recalled more than 7.6 million vehicles.

The most recent issues with Takata airbags began nearly last month when Toyota reissued the 2013 recall of more than 766,300 vehicles because the company may have received an incomplete list of potentially defective airbags from the car part manufacturer.

Just a day later, NHTSA announced an investigation [PDF] into whether Takata airbags made after 2002 were prone to failing after receiving six reports of airbag ruptures in Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mazda and Chrysler vehicles. Regulators are also looking to determine if high-humidity climates contributed to the reported airbag explosions.

While Takata officials say [PDF] they are working with regulators on the investigation, they have yet to admit the airbags include a safety defect.

Honda expands recall by up to 1 million cars [USA Today]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist