'Largest Recall In American History': Takata To Recall Nearly 70 Million Airbags (nbcnews.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Federal regulators are ordering Japanese supplier Takata to recall as many as 40 million additional airbags linked to a defect already blamed for at least 11 deaths, bringing the total number of faulty airbags in the U.S. to 69 million. Previously, the recall involved about 24 million vehicles sold in the U.S. over roughly the last decade, with 14 manufacturers impacted. With the latest recall, almost every other major carmaker will now be pulled. "This is the largest recall in American history," National Highway Traffic Safety Administrator Mark Rosekind told reporters on Wednesday. Initial estimates said 35-40 million airbags were to be recalled. And because some vehicles use more than one Takata airbag, the total number of vehicles will likely be smaller. Now it's considered highly likely that the total number of cars, trucks and crossovers will now top the 50 million mark, and as many as a quarter of all vehicles on U.S. roads could be covered. The NHTSA has reported that just over 8 million vehicles had been fixed as of April 22. The airbags have so far been tied to at least 10 U.S. deaths and more than 100 injuries -- two more fatalities in Malaysia were confirmed Wednesday. "The exploding airbags can send shrapnel into the faces and necks of victims, leaving them looking as if they had been shot or stabbed," according to Fox 59.

Comments

not a large fraction of problems

[call -151]

I have a vehicle affected by this and was trying to gauge the appropriate level of alarm. The best info I can find indicates that there have been 88 "rupture" events out of 1.2 million deployment as of last year. So I do not think it makes sense to worry too much at this point, as those are pretty unlikely events, even if it is really more like 1000 bad explosive deployments so far. There do seem to be some concerns about high humidity areas and strong temperature variation locations being more likely to have issues and originally the recalls were focused on the southern US and other warm areas, though now the plan is to replace them all.

Much of the coverage has been alarmist- "your car is going to kill you!" so it was good to see that the fraction is low. But it was very troubling to read about how evasive and duplicitous the manufacturer has been as the problems should have been detected and addressed much earlier.

Re:not a large fraction of problems

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a Honda employee. Get your vehicle fixed. Most likely you'll never need your airbag, let alone have one that fails. It's just not worth the risk when the replacement and service is completely FREE.

Speaking in all honesty, this is the top priority for our division. We want to replace 100% of the Takata inflators. Other OEs should be taking it just as serious.

I own s car they is affected by this recall

[mark-t]

And I was told that parts won't be in until 2018. Nice, huh?