Takata Air Bag Recall Becomes Biggest Ever In US
DETROIT (WWJ/AP) - Under pressure from U.S. safety regulators, Takata Corp. has agreed to declare 33.8 million air bags defective, a move that will double the number of cars and trucks included in what is now the largest auto recall in U.S. history.
The chemical that inflates the air bag can explode with too much force, blowing apart a metal inflator and sending shrapnel into the passenger compartment. The faulty inflators are responsible for six deaths and more than 100 injuries worldwide.
"One congressman even likened it to driving down the road with a shotgun pointed at your face," said WWJ Automotive Analyst John McElroy. "It's killed a number of people, it's extremely tragic, it's very dangerous."
The announcement was made Tuesday afternoon by the heads of the Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which reached an agreement with Takata after sparring with the company for the past year over the size of the recalls and the cause of the problem.
Eleven automakers, including Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp., have recalled 17 million vehicles in the U.S. and more than 36 million worldwide because of the problem.
McElroy said the recall will begin in humid states and is expected to take over a year. It's unclear which manufacturers will be most affected by the expansion of the recall.
The Takata air bag recall dwarfs last year's highly publicized recall of 2.6 million General Motors small cars for defective ignition switches and Toyota's recalls of 10 million vehicles for problems with unintended acceleration.
"No one can figure out why these things are failing!" McElroy said. "So, even though Takata is saying, sure, bring these things back, we'll replace them — and the new ones are fine —they said that the old ones were fine. So I can understand why Takata has not exactly rushed into these recall."
NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind said investigations by the agency and auto industry haven't determined precisely what's causing Takata's inflators to explode, but said the agency cannot wait for a cause to take action.
"We know that owners are worried about their safety and the safety of their families," he said. "This is probably the most complex consumer safety recall in U.S. history."
He said people who get recall notices in the mail should immediately make an appointment to get their cars fixed.
What about the ongoing problem with vehicle owners disregarding recalls?
"There's a lot of people who just ignore them, but this is a little bit different," McElroy said. "When you know that that air bag could go off, totally unexpectedly — and especially shoot, literally, shrapnel into your face that could kill you — I think they're going to get a lot more people bringing their cars in with this recall."
[Once manufacturers identify which vehicles are affected, vehicle owners can use NHTSA's VIN search tool to confirm whether an individual vehicle is under recall, and search by VIN on a specific vehicle-maker's site].
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