Honda Recalls Vehicles Due to Defective Airbags
Honda Motor Co Ltd today announced a recall of 378,758 vehicles in the United States to repair defective airbags that have been linked to eleven injuries and one fatality. The recall expands an initial one that was announced in November 2008 for less than 4,000 Accord and Civic sedans due to faulty airbag inflators and expanded in July 2008 to cover an additional 440,000 vehicles.
The latest expansion of the recall applies to 2001 and 2002 model-year Accord, Civic, Odyssey, CR-V, and 2002 Acura TL vehicles. In some vehicles, airbag inflators may deploy with too much pressure, causing the inflator casing to rupture, which can potentially result in injury or death, Honda said.
The company said it was not aware of any new incidents after the airbag recall was first broadened in July 2009. “However, we have concluded that we 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 said in a statement.
Since November 2009, popular automakers such as Nissan, Ford, and Toyota recalled large amounts of vehicles for various reasons. Toyota recalled 8.5 million vehicles due to sticky gas pedals and floor mat interference, which can result in sudden acceleration and 133,000 Prius hybrid and 14,500 Lexus HS250h vehicles due to brake problems.
Ford Motor Co. also announced plans to fix 17,600 Mercury Milan and Ford Fusion gas-electric hybrids because of a software problem that can give drivers the impression that the brakes have failed.
In January 2010, Honda Motor Co. recalled 646,000 compact cars worldwide, so that it can inspect window switches that can overheat if exposed to liquid, causing smoke or melting or even catch fire.
