According to Honda’s website, the recall does not include Hondas made before 2001. Does this mean that pre-2001 Hondas are KNOWN (not just assumed) to NOT have the problem with their airbag inflators? In other words, are the problematic inflators a different design that Honda first used in its 2001 models?
The local Honda dealer assured me, verbally, that this is the case, but I have not found it in writing.
I have to believe that means that there’s no evidence that the problem existed before 2001. Perhaps the design was different before that time. It would probably take an insider to know the details… or a lawyer developing a class-action lawsuit, with the power of “discovery”… and perhaps subpoenas.
Nothing is known for certain, certainly nothing about automobiles. But if the pre-2001’s were having problems with the air bags, in 15 years time of these cars on the road you’d think it would be readily apparent if there were problems.
Crap to the nth degree, my 03 trailblazer has the faulty parts, but no recall, sorry for a politcal stab but if only cruze decides carpet bombing, really? could remember the agencies he would do away with Ted Cruz made a similar mistake — he named five agencies, but could only come up with four. (He repeated the Department of Commerce twice.)
If Cruz wins here are the departments he wants to do away with
Internal Revenue Services – end the political targeting, simplify the tax code, and abolish the IRS as we know it.
Department of Education – return education to those who know our students best: parents, teachers, local communities, and states. And block-grant education funding to the states.
Department of Energy – cut off the Washington Cartel, stop picking winners and losers, and unleash the energy renaissance.
Department of Commerce – close the “congressional cookie jar” and promote free-enterprise and free trade for every business.
Department of Housing and Urban Development – offer real solutions to lift people out of hardship, rather than trapping families in a cycle of poverty, and empower Americans by promoting the dignity of work and reforming programs such as Section 8 housin
you get what you ask for, sure I am not personally affected until I have to defend my property, but I guess I better go buy a gun because there will be a lot of hungry people in the streets looking for my food. The upside is the rich get credits for assisted living in their units, so that might not go away
I don’t know if anyone really knows anymore, or if even the exact cause has been determined yet. Our 12 just got recalled the other day but the parts are not available yet. We plan to trade but there is some chatter that the 16s also have a problem with the passenger bag. We do know that way back there was a management struggle at Takata when they produced the bad parts and were warned that failure could cause bankruptcy. How they continue to produce the millions of free parts and not just give up, who knows. But the recalls seem to just keep expanding and just like the gas shortage, if there is no supply there is no supply regardless of anger level. So I think the last thing they want is to go back to 01 and expand the recall.
As far as eliminating agencies, we maybe don’t need to eliminate them but there sure needs to be a house cleaning to clear out the subversives. Like Lincoln said we’ll never be invaded from without but from within.
I agree with above. I think the depth of the problem is far worse than what we have been told/fed. They keep expanding it, so I think any car with an airbag is save.
As I am typing this, the news is showing another young life lost to a defective airbag in Houston after a fender bender; just sad.
Yeah, I certainly wouldn’t sleep easy with aging airbags in my Honda right now. You have to understand that there is a financial hit to a company that recalls cars. While I’m suggesting Honda is doing anything unethical, you can bet they won’t issue a recall unless they’re pretty certain there’s a problem, first. What I’m saying, is you’ve got the “burden of proof” reversed: lack of a recall does NOT mean that the airbags are known to be good; it simply means they haven’t yet been shown to be bad.
After Galant’s post with the recent death, I did a little googling on the whole thing. Doesn’t make you feel any better but people really need to check to see if it is on the recall list. Its not just Honda but GM, VW, Ford, Chrysler, etc, even BMW. They said “they never got a recall notice”. No excuse on a 2001 in a hot and humid climate, notice or not, check the recall list.
Some cars didn’t use Takata air bags, and Takata didn’t always use the ammonium nitrate charge packaged the same way as the millions that are involved in the recall. Ask your Honda dealer what the original equipment air bag system was.
My 03 trailblazer has a takata, but the recall ony went back 10 years as far as I know.
I am actually worried that this is not even limited to Takata only. I think others probably have issues too, maybe not as common. You essentially have some exploding device in the car. There is also that sticker on the visor that says after 10 yrs the airbag system should be checked or something to that effect.
Car safety in this case reminds me of all the ads for medicine on tv, the cure can be worse than the disease, ie having an airbag could be worse than not having one,
My 2005 Camry . . . built in Kentucky . . . has never been on any of the airbag recall lists
I’m assuming it probably does use Takata airbags, but I’m not going to remove one to read the label
I’ve checked the recalls lists a few times over the past, and it’s never been on there. I’ve even paid to log onto the Toyota technical website a few times, to look for unrelated information. While I was there, I looked for recalls, TSBs, etc. by VIN, and no airbag recall came up for my car
Nothing more I can do
Well, I don’t doubt there is some risk associated with having an airbag–ANY airbag–in a car. Pyrotechnics, by definition, have scary failure modes. The real question is: how dangerous do airbags have to get, before they produce a net decrease in safety?
See, I’m not certain we’re there yet. There have been, what, 10 deaths associated with mishaps of affected airbags? Presumably, though, these airbags ARE still effective, most of the time, at reducing death and injury. These recalled airbags, scary as they may be, might well be “break even” in that they’re saving roughly as many lives as they’re taking. Not to say that we shouldn’t go ahead with the recall…we clearly should…but how do you quantitatively calculate risk?
@galant, it is not just the explosive charge, but how it is packaged. Other ammonium nitrate systems used a different canister design. There is no sense in worrying about it. The chances are very low that other systems have the same problems and almost nonexistent that you will have the problem.
My Mustang has been recalled TWICE! The inflators for both bags have been replaced once already and I have a second notice on my desk awaiting the second part replacement “sometime in the summer of 2016.” A car that spent its first 8 years in Ohio. Nothing on my built-in-Japan Honda.
This is the second time in the history of mandated airbags where your “safety device” is a threat to your life. The first was the original mandated airbags caused injury and death to small drivers because the force was so great due to the requirement to protect unbelted drivers. Revise the standard, lower the force, problem solved - we thought.
Now this; aged inflators can frag the driver and passenger upon deployment. All is well as long as you don’t have an accident.
Our safety devices shouldn’t kill us. Seems simple enough in principle, very difficult in practice.
Interestingly, Honda owns/owned a piece of Takata. Then they evidently scratched them off the list of suppliers. No information on whether they sold their interest in them though. Takata is in for something like $25 billion to cover the recalls and take in a total of $6 billion in revenues. Just doing the math it’s hard to believe they can sustain this level of production and someone not falling on the sword.
@meanjoe75fan makes a good point about airbags reducing injury and death, and have saved hundreds if not thousands of lives. This in no way takes them off the hook for the 10 confirmed deaths, especially in light of the documents uncovered showing that their management knew about the problem yet continued making the bags with a known problem. Similar to the VW emissions problem, management or investment bankers put unreasonable pressure on to meet a schedule, promises are made without investigating if they can be met. People who have to make it happen are ignored or told they are not team players, and we end up with a huge mess. It is one thing to have not known about the shrapnel problem and found it later, but to have known and still moved forward is outrageous. But more lives have been saved with air bags than have been tragically lost to this egregious action.
Anyone can own a piece of Takata if they can trade on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Takata is a publicly traded company.