LAST year’s global recall of cars fitted with potentially killer airbags has not completely worked, US regulators have warned.
According to Bloomberg there is now a push for a second recall of 2.1M cars and trucks in the US whose airbags could go off while driving.
That may mean a second trip to the dealership for consumers, assuming replacement parts for the new fix are available
The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) held a special briefing to warn the public that an earlier recall of nine models from Fiat Chrysler, Honda and Toyota did not cure the problems. The agency is asking vehicle owners who have not completed the first repair to do so now.
That may mean a second trip to the dealership for consumers, assuming replacement parts for the new fix are available, which they may not be until the end of the year.
Some of the cars being recalled for a second time were part of last year’s massive 10-automaker recall of Takata Corp. airbags for a different defect: inflators that could explode with deadly results.
“If you own an affected vehicle, this means driving around with the knowledge your air bag might still randomly deploy,” said Karl Brauer, a senior analyst at Kelley Blue Book. “And just to keep it interesting, some of these vehicles are equipped with Takata air bags, meaning the random deployment could include metal shrapnel. What a mess.”
It’s the biggest challenge to the technology since the mid-1990s, when NHTSA began investigating reports that first-generation air bags deployed with such force that children and small adults riding in front seats were being killed and, in some cases, decapitated.
