Monday, May 30, 2016

Yet another Takata airbag recall.

At this point it should come as no surprise to anyone that eight manufacturers recalled another 12 million Takata-airbag-equipped vehicles (those are just US numbers) on Friday. This is on top of the 5.5 million recalls announced on Monday last week. (And also on top of the 3.4 million recalled in 2013, the 4.8 million recalled in 2014 and the 3.3 million recalled in 2015).
Once again the culprit is airbag modules, occupancy sensors or inflators. Take your pick, because I think now it's fairly safe to say that ANY vehicle with a Takata airbag will eventually be recalled at this point.
In case you're keeping count, that's a total of 29 millions vehicles recalled so far, just in the US.
If you want to check for open recalls - in the US at least - the safercar website has a lookup that you can use either via model, make and year, or more easily via your VIN: Check for recalls.
At this point you have to wonder how Takata can survive this. There's class action suits against them and almost every car manufacturer who uses their products - VW, Audi, Honda, Toyota, Fiat, GM, Chrysler - you name it, they all have open suits against them. What's amusing is that in 2015 this was already the largest vehicle recall in history, and that was before the extra 15 million (so far) vehicles were added in the first 5 months of 2016.
I think you should just assume that at some point, the vehicle you're driving WILL be recalled because of this.