Carmakers to recall five million vehicles

With this new market action, a total of approximately 970,000 Honda and Acura vehicles in Canada, have been or are now subject to replacement of a Takata driver and/or passenger front airbag inflator.

Honda said Wednesday it is recalling 341,000 Accord cars from model years 2008-2010 to replace control units linked to failures in Continental systems. At least two injuries are attributed to the defect. It also added that 74 injury accusations in connection with air bags that failed to deploy have yet to be verified.

Honda said the PSDI-5 inflators will be replaced, beginning this summer, with parts from another supplier. It also has reports of as many as 25 inadvertent airbag deployments.

Honda uses more Takata air bags than any other automaker. A number of other manufacturers are affected by this problem, as well.

The additions would join previously-ordered recalls for 23 million ammonium-nitrate inflators in 19 million vehicles in the U.S.

Honda is recalling another 440,000 cars in Japan over air bag inflators made by Takata that can explode and hurl shrapnel into the vehicle.

Analysts said the two air bag recalls are not comparable, especially because Continental has a smaller market share than Takata, and Continental’s recall affects far fewer vehicles.

Honda has now issued another recall to recall back models that was fitted with the problematic Takata airbag.

“Should an unrepaired vehicle result in any claim because of the required recall fix, the dealership will be exclusively responsible to the claimant, and will be required to defend and indemnify American Honda for any resulting claims”, Honda said in the memo.

The latest Continental recall developed over years.

In the affected vehicles, moisture can get inside of the airbag control module, eventually causing the power supply to fail. if the power supply is corrupted, the airbags may not inflate in a crash, or they may deploy without a crash at all. An investigation found a problem with the control unit that led to a design change in a semiconductor in 2008.

Honda spokesman Chris Martin confirmed the dealer memo as well as the stop-sale order, which he said is Honda’s protocol with any recall that involves cars likely to be among dealer’s new or certified pre-owned inventory. It’s believed the problem was finally solved with that final change, made in early 2011.