BREAKING: Department of Transportation Recalls 35-40 Million Airbags; Time Plays a Factor in Risk

That's what happens when you have a track record of selling people good cars for forty years. They give you the benefit of the doubt. Mind you the NHTSA couldn't launch a campaign against Honda like they did with Toyota, what with Fiats being as likely to have recalled airbags as anything, and everyone else having at least some exposure. Weren't the bad airbag inflators hecho en Mexico?

I see your point, Tresmonos -- GM and Ford don't get a lot of credit in some circles for the quality gains they've made. But remember that Takata supplied everybody, including FCA, Ford and BMW. This isn't just a problem for Japanese automakers.

@ tresmonos....My thoughts exactly. Hundreds, and thousands , of Nissans , Hondas , Toyotas all with Takata air bags. Last nights NBC news story, what does he camera focus on? None other than the "Chevy Bow Tie" . Its seems to me that just a very small percentage of Chevys were involved. A couple of years of Silverados maybe ? Your right, no way would the domestics get away with pawning this off on a supplier. As you say , in the eyes of many, the Japanese auto manufacturing industry can do no wrong. The "pile on domestic hatred" here at TTAC, is becoming boring and tedious .

Toddatlasf1: You'd be surprised where many Japanese (and every other nationality ownership) Tier 2, 3 and 4 ops are located.

@VoGo Not nearly the volume. Honda was their largest customer. All other OEM volume was a drop in the bucket compared to Honda. Also, Honda was Takata's largest stakeholder. The B&B is generally fickle and clueless. Personally, I'd rather have my J body flock run allow air leakage after 10 years of ownership, than have my airbag detonate and kill my dumb 4ss. If any of you actually saw the chain of custody lineside storage locations (locked down by line supervisors), the poka-yokes and tooling that is involved with airbag and safety devices, there would certainly be more outrage over this situation. Operators are hand picked for these jobs, because if you screw them up, you get this. But maybe this is only in US based OEM final locations? Maybe Honda just throws these on with clicker wrenched and Jim Beam? HONDA MUST USE LABORERS THAT ARE DRUNK OR HIGH OR WE WOULDN'T HAVE THESE EGREGIOUS MURDER DEATH MACHINES /sarcasm This is a gross violation of trust. It's par for the course when dealing with Japanese ethics. Being a quality engineer for a large Japanese tier 1 was an eye opening experience.

"But instead we have the idiot masses panning this off on the Tier 1." The breadth of the recall would suggest that OEMs don't play much role in the specific design of airbags, so it is reasonable to fault the supplier.

@tresmonos You make good points.

mikey, It just makes it easier and a lot more fun for me to troll the B&B. You have to wade through the peanut gallery to get to worth while commenters like you. The Japanese are king of spinning PR. Their warranty metrics are masked within scheduled service intervals and unreported 'service actions' aka recalls. It's well known in the industry. Same product, slightly more regimented SPC, just more devious business practices.

@tresmonos "More devious" might be a reach. I don't think you want to stand on a soapbox extolling GM for the honesty and transparency of their leaders this past decade.

VoGo, I am biased - I'll share that in a bit. After talking with many colleagues and ex classmates of mine, I think I can say it with certainty that their business practices are more unethical. Their corporate espionage is historically horrid - this is a fact. There are merits to Japanese owned manufacturing, don't get me wrong. There are also downsides to it. This being one of them. It's like a slightly different flavor of sh1t cake. The poor b@stard quality manager for Takata is probably blackballed from the industry. As for my bias: Nothing was more exciting than containing non conformities. It was like automotive firefighting. The days when I would be successful were rewarding. There was one day I had where I was unable to pull a known population out from the field because a Japanese President pulled some Fight Club sh1t and deemed it unnecessary and not financially worth it. It inevitably cost my immediate supervisor his job. Long story short, I waited for these parts to come back to my plant by tracking known julian date coded parts in warranty returns. I got back ~90% of my bad parts via service departments. The 10% keeps me up at night because I know the failure modes for that part and the target customer application (not to mention who bought this production lot of OEM vehicles). I don't hate many people, but that Japanese CEO can rot in hell. It's not like I didn't try, either. After I verbally assaulted him for his decision he calmly told me that I was unlike any other employee that he has ever encountered. Probably because I had a conscience. When I quit that organization, I felt liberated from hell. I'm sure it's business as usual for their now seven Tier 1 plants and their ever growing OEM sales base.

@VoGo We're all biased; I always appreciate those who are honest about it. But you bring a ton of experience and insight to TTAC, for which many of us are grateful.

@Pch101 That depends. They're likely a full service supplier. Now, did they violate a print or a design directive from this many OEM's? It's hard to say. Did the OEM dictate the hermetic sealing process (I'm guessing this is what failed) or was it a non conformity? Did the metal frame have a material standard that was not adhered? Do other airbags have this same seal failure but just had more stringent material controls for their housing? From what I read, it's a failure in the manufacturing process and there was insufficient control plan measures to detect the issue, that or the control plan measures were in place and Takata violated the control plan. If you're making the part to print, but know there is insufficient control plan measures in place to maintain design intent after the warranty period, are you at fault for not communicating the issue to the customer as a full service supplier? My point was that supplier related issues in the recent past (GM/Delphi ignition failure) were painted by the press and the B&B to be strictly a OEM issue. The supplier retooled that ignition module without a print revision. They were joint partners in that crime. There were likely more engineers and management at Delphi aware of the failure modes, crash test results (and had just overall better product knowledge of the switch) than at GM. I can say that with certainty. Your supplier is generally the subject matter expert, anymore. They are also more involved with development and quality testing than the OEM design and release engineer. D&R's are glorified paper pushers, anymore. It's why they're being outsourced to 2nd world labor.

@tresmonos Airbags are a unique animal. I wouldn't compare them to ignitions. I have no doubt that GM played a far greater role in the ignition design than any automaker played in whatever design and/or processes that caused Takata's airbags to failure. Also, it would seem that GM's internal processes contributed to the delays in making the linkage between the various fatal crashes and the faulty design. As far as I can tell, GM focused on the contributory negligence of the cases (i.e. that the drivers involved often played roles in causing the crashes) instead of understanding GM's failure irrespective of fault (i.e. that airbags should have deployed in these cases regardless of who caused the wreck.) I wouldn't attribute that failure to malice, but that also isn't a ringing endorsement of GM's corporate culture.