Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Takata air bag recall expands

This week's expansion of the Takata air bag recall to cover nearly 34 million vehicles may not make it the largest product recall ever. At least in raw numbers, it was far surpassed a decade ago by the recall of 150 million pieces of lead-tainted costume jewelry imported from India.

A video explains air bag safety on Toyotas. BMW, Chrysler, Daimler Trucks, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, and Subaru are also in the recall. (Bloomberg)
A video explains air bag safety on Toyotas. BMW, Chrysler, Daimler Trucks, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, and Subaru are also in the recall. (Bloomberg)Read more

This week's expansion of the Takata air bag recall to cover nearly 34 million vehicles may not make it the largest product recall ever. At least in raw numbers, it was far surpassed a decade ago by the recall of 150 million pieces of lead-tainted costume jewelry imported from India.

But it's plainly one of the most complex and expensive recalls ever, and it's hands down the most ironic: A life-saving product is now blamed in at least five U.S. deaths, one in Malaysia, and more than a dozen other injuries - and maybe far more. And the company that made the air bags, after resisting for years, has finally acknowledged that a defect is to blame - even if nobody is totally sure what went wrong.

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced the expanded Takata recall Tuesday, the latest step in a process that has dragged out for years. The first recall was in 2008.

In the fall, when Takata expanded its first, small recalls to cover nearly eight million vehicles, disputes over what went wrong led to Senate hearings and a call by President Obama for a review of the "safety culture" at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Once limited to certain cars in especially hot and humid regions, and then limited to driver's-side installations, the recall now apparently covers all of the suspect Takata air bags.

In nearly 20 cases identified by the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, the air bags have caused horrific, shrapnel-like injuries when their inflators were subject to explosive forces that they were supposedly designed to handle.

Many details in the case remain unclear - not just why certain inflators break apart or how many people have been hurt or killed, but also, for frustrated consumers, whether particular vehicles are now part of the recall.

A majority of the 7.8 million vehicles recalled by last fall were Honda models manufactured before 2007.

The latest announcement includes vehicles from 11 manufacturers: BMW, Chrysler, Daimler Trucks, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, and Toyota. Owners have been advised to periodically check a vehicle identification number search tool available online at www.safercar.gov/rs/takata. (You can find your VIN on your vehicle or on your state registration.)

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx suggested Wednesday that federal officials had finally pushed Takata to take a step the government may not have been legally able to force. He said the NHTSA had concluded that a flaw in the inflators was responsible "for at least five deaths in the United States."

"But up until now, Takata has refused to acknowledge that their air bags are defective. That changed yesterday," Foxx said.

The irony of the recall was made plain in a NHTSA report this month assessing the value of "occupant protection" systems in vehicles. The report estimates that frontal air bags have saved nearly 40,000 people since 1975, including nearly 2,400 in 2013.

Irony aside, the risk from the Takata air bags is real, if statistically small. And several of the cases linked to the defect have occurred outside the Gulf Coast areas first targeted - including in California, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Virginia.

Orlando lawyer Rich Newsome, who now represents seven people alleging Takata-inflator injuries, said his first client, Corey Burdick, was hurt about a year ago in a 2002 Honda Accord.

"He was in a fender bender, and he should have walked away," Newsome said. That's what happened to the other driver.

Instead, the inflator - which Newsome describes as "a little steel device that looks like a hockey puck" - shattered. The explosive force, intended to protect Burdick by inflating the air bag, instead sent a 3.5-inch piece of steel into his face, destroying his right eye.

Much of the fallout from the Takata defect will center on large, multistate lawsuits contending that the vehicles involved have lost value, including one filed last fall by the Philadelphia firm Anapol Schwartz that said 139 injuries had been linked to the defect.

Lost-value claims will be mitigated if the air-bag modules are all finally replaced. But that process could take months or even years, according to Jack Gillis, author of an annual safety reference, "The Car Book," published by the Center for Auto Safety.

Gillis' advice: Ask your dealer (or the vehicle manufacturer) to provide a loaner vehicle until parts are available.

Beyond that, owners worried about their risks have few options other than to check the recall website and ask why a corporate and government failure put them at risk.

215-854-2776 @jeffgelles