Honda’s Latest Air Bag Recall to Total 5.7 Million Cars

Takata is no longer alone in airbag drama, as Continental Automotive Systems said Thursday that it is recalling 5 million vehicles worldwide to fix an issue with their airbags.

Honda, which has already been heavily affected by the Takata issue, will have to recall 341,000 Accord vehicles of the 2008 to 2010 model years. The Japanese automaker has claimed that certain Acura and Honda vehicles from 2005-2016 are being recalled in order to replace the Takata PSDI-5 driver-side inflators, which adds 2.23 million vehicles.

As of now, around 600,000 vehicles in the USA have actually been recalled, though that number is set to still grow.

Honda is announcing this recall to encourage all owners of affected vehicles to take them to an authorized dealer as soon as they receive notification from Honda that replacement parts are available for their vehicles.

Continental said it would notify automakers that installed these air bag control units in their vehicles. The inclusion of 2015 and 2016 vehicles also extends beyond Takata’s two defect reports filed January 25, which said the total batch of recalled vehicles extended only to 2014.

Defective Takata inflators have been linked to nine U.S. deaths since 2004, all but one of them in older Honda vehicles. We anticipate that owners of the affected models will be able to confirm their vehicles’ recall status on these sites beginning on February 15, 2016.

Federal law bars the sale of new vehicles with pending recalls, but not that of used vehicles, and regulators have been stymied in their efforts to compel dealers to make recall repairs on used vehicles before sale.

More than 20 million cars have been recalled because of the risk of violent airbag explosions.

Takata is preparing to present a restructuring plan to automakers in early May that will include an agreement on the sharing of recall costs, people familiar with the matter said this week.

He said: “Honda will contact all affected customers in the coming weeks”.

Not all the cars in these model years will be included in the recall. It also said there have been 74 injury allegations related to airbags that did not deploy but those aren’t confirmed.

Honda spokeswoman Yuka Abe said they are pending negotiations with the relevant authorities in each country.