On Tuesday, February 9, 2010, Honda announced that it would be recalling another 438,000 cars globally to replace an airbag deflator that could and hurl shards toward a driver in an auto accident. Just recently, on January 29th, Honda recalled 646,000 vehicles for a defective window switch. The defective window switch recently caused a Honda Jazz vehicle to be engulfed in flames, which killed a child in South Africa. Now, Honda is claiming that there is a serious defect in its airbags. This all follows the unprecedented recall of millions of vehicles by Toyota.
According to Honda, which is Japan’s second largest automaker, its “ongoing investigation determined that the defect was caused by insufficient stamping pressure during the production of the inflator propellant.” This new recall by Honda is concentrated mostly here in the United States, where approximately 379,000 vehicles are subject to the recall. Indeed, this latest recall applies to 2001 and 2002 model-year Accord, Civic, Odyssey, CR-V, Pilot and 2002 Acura TL and CL vehicles in the United States.
It also appears, according to Honda, that all reports of accidents and injuries stemming from this particular defect have occurred in the United States. This particular defect has been linked to one death and eleven injuries, all of which occurred in the United States. This recent recall by Honda comes at a time when Toyota is under heavy scrutiny for being slow to respond to safety issues.