Boom: Honda Recalls Killer Airbags
Honda said it will recall another roughly 378,000 vehicles in the U.S. to fix potentially faulty airbag systems that are linked to at least one known fatality and 11 injuries in the U.S., says the Nikkei [sub].
That brings the number of airbag-related recalled Honda and Acura models to more than 826,000. Honda said some airbags in its older vehicles deploy with too much pressure, and send metal fragments flying into the car.
In a separate announcement Wednesday in Tokyo, Honda said that the additional number of cars that it will recall due to this airbag problem totals 437,763 vehicles globally including 378,758 in the U.S., 41,685 vehicles in Canada, 9,227 in Mexico, 4,042 in Japan, 1,361 in Taiwan and 703 in Australia.
The affected airbag systems are primarily found in 2001 and 2002 Accords, Civics, Odysseys, CR-Vs and certain Acura models from those years.
John Mendel, American Honda’s executive vice president of sales, said the company’s decision to expand the earlier recall was driven in part by the current concern over safety issues raised by Toyota’s recent recalls. “There’s certainly a heightened sensitivity right now to anything to do with recalls,” he said. “We were particularly concerned that this will not look like we were trying to duck under the screen.” Expect similar reactions from other car makers. Total Recall, The Sequel.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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I don't want to wander too far from the subject at hand but I hope the TTAC will indulge me. Has anyone ever seen the YouTube video of a guy in a convertible Mercedes, honking at the old lady? She swats the front of his car with her shopping bag and the driver's airbag deploys. Is that possible?
"That brings the number of airbag-related recalled Honda and Acura models to more than 826,000" Spoke too soon. Yeah, this is going to hurt. With Honda AND Toyota doing these recalls you really start to, you know, have doubts. It's going to take some very, very hard work now for these Japanese companies to get back on track. The Japanese can be very innovative, clever and perceptive... I'll be watching Mazda, Nissan and Subaru closely.
WOW! Hand Grenade laden air bags. Glad my Honda isn't on this list. At least not yet.
I have always thought that rather than mandating air bags, the feds should have mandated crash protection standards and let the engineers figure out how best to do it. WE might have had competition between more elaborate and better seat belts/harnesses, and air bags. The seat belt/harness combos would probably have been cheaper, and maybe less tradeoff.