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Takata Airbag Recall News: Honda Now Ordered To Give Report To Federal Investigative Team


Takata Airbag Recall News: Honda Now Ordered To Give Report To Federal Investigative Team

The tornado of bad news that is the Takata airbag recall is climbing the Fujita category scale quickly. 17 million cars worldwide are affected and dealerships are scrambling to prepare for the cars that have to come in for a fix. While Takata themselves are solely to blame for the airbag inflator’s design, Honda is now under the gun for not reporting deaths or injuries that were a result of the inflators.

Per U.S. auto regulations, manufacturers are required to submit an Early Warning Report quarterly. This report documents any death or injury that the company becomes aware of that might be caused by a defect. In the Takata case, the NHTSA has a reason to believe that Honda did not submit reports, and not just for the Takata airbag inflators. Honda now has three weeks to complete a 34-point questionnaire and give an explanation under oath as to how it acquired, logged and stored data since 2000. Honda released a statement that explained that the company had contracted a third-party group to audit their programs. If Honda fails to respond in time they will be subject to a $35 million fine.

Meanwhile critics have been vocal over Takata’s recommendation of “geographic recalls” of the faulty inflators. Currently the recalls cover vehicles that are registered in a “high humidity” region, such as Southern Florida, the Caribbean Islands, or Pacific Islands. However, there are calls for the NHTSA to simply issue a blanket recall, saying that the geographic recall is selective and that heat and humidity alone aren’t the only factors that affect the inflators. And they have a good reason for their argument: out of the four known U.S. deaths, only one occurred in Florida. The others occurred in Oklahoma, California and Virginia.

Airbag explodes on steering wheel


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2 thoughts on “Takata Airbag Recall News: Honda Now Ordered To Give Report To Federal Investigative Team

  1. Toolman

    It’s pretty frightening that some of the cars under the recall have been on the road for more than a decade with grenades installed in the steering wheel. My car is an ’04 and I recently received a recall notice on it. This thing has been on the road for 10 years, each year getting more and more likely to rip my face off! I wonder how many people have been maimed or killed over the years and no one knows because it’s been swept under the corporate rug.

  2. loren

    People knew ‘way back that the airbag business itself was going to be a dangerous place to be. A lawyer’s paradise.

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