Honda and the Air Bag Recall

Honda Motor Co. is delaying no longer. It has recalled 304,000 vehicles globally because of problems with the air-bags inflating with too much pressure during a crash. When bags inflated on impact, the force was so great that metal and plastic pieces flew around the car cabin. Twenty people were injured in such precipitous air bag inflations. And in other instances, the bags forcefully deployed and killed two people. These injuries and deaths occurred in the US in 2009. According to Hajime Kaneko for Honda, the cause was the use of incorrect material in a chemical used to inflate the bags.

The global recall, an expansion of recalls for the same issue over the last three years affects particular models, for example, the 2001 and 2002 Accord; the 2001 to 2003 Civic and Odyssey; the 2002 and 2003 CR-V and Acura 3.2 TL; and the 2003 Pilot. In a breakdown of countries, the recall includes 273,000 US cars, 27,000 in Canada, 2000 in Japan and another 2000 in other countries like Germany (359) Isreal (158) and one car in the UK. Over 2 million vehicles worldwide have been impacted, according to Tokyo Honda.

Initially, it was thought that there was excessive moisture in the inflator propellant, an integral component in what deploys the bay. But after Honda corrected for that and cars' air bags were still deploying with excessive force, it was apparent that more correction was needed on additional cars that were not part of the same cohort (make, model, year).

Now the company has determined that a defective stamping machine used during production caused the malfunctioning of the air bags. They believe that the issue has finally been dealt with properly and this will be the last recall.

Honda spokespersons also identified that service parts related to 912 air bags that are sold for installation in vehicles for collision repair and other matters were being recalled.

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