Honda issues further recall over airbag safety concerns

Honda has issued a recall for 378,758 cars sold in the US while recalling around a further 50,000 sold elsewhere in the world including Japan, Mexico, Taiwan and Australia.

The latest recall is an extension to an existing global recall over airbag inflation problems. The new request to return cars expands upon a recall first issued in late 2008, which was expanded upon in 2009. The latest batch of effected cars include 2001 and 2002  models of the Accord, Civic, Odyssey, CR-V, and selected 2002 Acura TL vehicles.

The potential fault leads the airbag to over-inflate and burst, spraying out shards of metal. In a company statement, the carmaker warned: ‘The driver’s airbag inflators in these vehicles may deploy with too much pressure, which can cause the inflator casing to rupture and could result in injury or fatality.’

In total, the Japanese carmaker says it is aware of 12 incidents related to this issue as of February 2010. While Honda reports that it was aware of two additional events when the decision to first expand the recall was made in July 2009, no new problems have been reported since. However the recall comes as the carmaker says it cannot be ‘completely certain that the driver’s airbag inflator in the vehicles being added to this recall at this time will perform as designed’.

Honda is announcing this recall expansion to encourage all owners of these vehicles to take their vehicle to an authorized dealer as soon as they receive notification from Honda that their vehicle is affected. Notification to customers will start within this month.

The latest recall comes after the carmaker issued a recent recall for Jazz-or Fit models- over concerns that a faulty switch could cause fire. This recall affected 646,000 models sold in Asia, Latin America, Europe, South Africa and North America.

Fellow Japanese carmaker, Toyota is likewise battling through product recalls, with seven models and 180, 865 vehicles sold in the UK among those affected by a recall to fix a potential problem with a sticky accelerator. Since then the carmaker issued a recall yesterday for a further 436,000 hybrid vehicles models sold worldwide, including its latest Prius model to fix a fault with the braking mechanism. That brings the total global recall since October to around 8 million Toyota vehicles. 

Author: Faye Sunderland, February 10th, 2010
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