Honda Motor Co has extended its recall of cars sold in the United States to replace potentially faulty air bags provided by Takata Corporation, linked to several incidents costing the lives of the drivers and their passengers, Reuters reports. The company will recall an undisclosed number of vehicles – sold between 2001 and 2006 – especially from areas with a humid climate, where the faulty air bag inflators are most vulnerable to rupture.
Since the first discovery of Takata Corporation providing faulty air bag inflators to a series of customers worldwide, a number of over 17 million vehicles from 10 manufacturers have been recalled worldwide. The issue is quite serious – Takata inflators can rupture when the air bag inflates on impact, propelling metal fragments into the passenger compartment. Honda Motor is Takata’s biggest customer. The issue is made more serious by the allegations that Takata engineers were ordered to destroy some test results regarding the defective inflators. According to the New York Times, Takata engineers have done some extended tests on the parts after an accident in 2004, when the airbag inflator in a Honda Accord exploded, injuring the car’s driver. Instead of alerting the US safety regulators, the company has allegedly chosen to destroy the test papers, the newspaper claims.
Honda has recalled almost eight million vehicles in the US only since 2008 due to defective air bag inflators. Together with other manufacturers, the total number of cars recalled in the US due to a similar issue surpasses 11 million. The current recall affects the following models: the 2003 – 2005 Honda Accord, the 2001 – 2005 Honda Civic, the 2002 – 2005 Honda CR-V, the 2003 – 2004 Element, the 2002 – 2004 Odyssey, the 2003 – 2005 Pilot, the 2006 Ridgeline, the 2003 – 2005 Acura MDX and the 2005 Acura RL. The cars were sold or are registered in areas with a humid climate – Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Saipan, Guam and American Samoa.