Airbag Recall Replay: Lives in Danger (Again)

If you thought that replacing the Takata airbag in your vehicle, under a warning and recall issued by the National Highway Safety Administration nearly five years ago, made your vehicle safe for travel, apparently you were mistaken.

Those vehicles are being recalled again, so the replaced - and supposedly safer - airbags can be changed out again. This time, the warning is just as imperative: “An inflator rupture may cause metal fragments to pass through the airbag and into the vehicle interior at high speed, which may result in injury or death to vehicle occupants.”

Thousands of vehicle owners across Connecticut and nationwide have been receiving recall notices in recent weeks, part of what continues to be described as the largest recall in U.S. automotive history. Toyota announced this fall that it was to begin conducting “the final phase of the safety recall involving Takata airbag inflators.”

It is déjà vu all over again for many owners, as vehicles are now being impacted for a second time. Here’s why:

According to the Toyota website, “the involved vehicles were repaired under a previous Takata airbag inflator recall with non-desiccated phase stabilized ammonium nitrate front passenger or driver airbag inflators produced by Takata, because final remedy inflators were not yet available. This is known as a “like for like” repair. These previously installed Takata inflators will now be replaced by inflators produced by other suppliers.”

The first recalls and replacements under the initial recall campaign began in 2015. As with the initial recall, according to officials, the current danger is greatest after “prolonged exposure to high absolute humidity, high temperatures, and high temperature cycling.”

A letter sent to car owners from Toyota, now arriving in mailboxes, points out that “the replacement inflator now in your vehicle can still degrade over time…and must be replaced.”

As the latest recall campaigns progress, according to Toyota, the company is “contacting vehicle owners in many different ways: using first class mail, postcards, certified mail, email, phone calls, and social media. We are striving to make this recall remedy easy and convenient, including emphasizing to vehicle owners that the repair is FREE and takes about an hour for most vehicles. To that end, we are offering alternate transportation during the repair, towing to the dealership, or vehicle pickup at no cost to the vehicle owner.” Notification is occurring in English and Spanish.

December is bringing the third wave of public recall notifications within the past year, according to data provided by Toyota to NHTSA this fall, citing efforts which ran October – December 2018 and January-March 2019. Some local dealers are alerting their customers, in addition to the company’s efforts.

According to the nonprofit website airbagrecall.org, “Certain manufacturers replaced older Takata airbags with newly manufactured temporary replacements. Even though these “interim” or “like for like” replacements would eventually need to be replaced, this repair was a safe and effective repair until a final version of the replacement part could be made. This is because an older airbag is more likely to explode with sharp metal fragments than a newer version of the same airbag. Replacing the older airbag with a newer version reduced the safety risk in your vehicle until a final replacement airbag could be produced and installed.”

That time is apparently right now.

The vehicles involved, according to Toyota, include approximately, 928,000 vehicles, where the company is seeking to install “final remedy inflators.”

According to the NHTSA, the ongoing, urgent airbag safety recall – the largest and most complex recall in U.S. history – affects tens of millions of vehicles from 19 vehicle manufacturers, and over 200 models and model years. At least 16 Americans have been killed, and more than 300 individuals have allegedly suffered serious injuries caused by these defective airbags, according to a news release issued by the airbagrecall.org earlier this year.

[To see if your vehicle is involved in a safety recall visit Toyota.com/recall or nhtsa.gov/recalls and enter your Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) or license plate information.]