Government Urges Owners of Old Hondas to Get Air Bags Fixed

The U.S. traffic authority on Thursday announced an urgent recall of about 313,000 Honda and Acura cars due to high safety risk of their Takata airbags.

Honda’s Frommer, speaking after a ceremony at Honda’s USA headquarters in Torrance, Calif., said about 70% of the most critical vehicles, the ones with inflators most likely to rupture, have already been repaired.

The high-risk inflators in question equip the 2001 – 2002 Honda Civic, 2001 – 2002 Honda Accord, 2002 – 2003 Acura TL, 2002 Honda CR-V, 2002 Honda Odyssey, 2003 Acura CL, and 2003 Honda Pilot.

Federal officials are warning more than 300,000 of the cars’ owners to stop driving them immediately.

The air bag inflators in these cars contain a manufacturing defect which “greatly increases” the risk of a unsafe rupture, said NHTSA.

“We want to get them off the road”, says Honda spokesman Marcos Frommer. Seventeen vehicle and truck makers are recalling 69 million inflators in what has become the largest automotive recall in USA history.

Defective inflators from cars in high-humidity climates such as that of the Gulf Coast are at the highest risk of rupturing in an accident, but really?

If you or someone you know owns a vehicle affected by this alert, visit SaferCar.gov immediately. Lab tests of the vehicles showed rupture rates of has high as 50 percent. If it is – you can contact your local Honda dealer for a replacement air bag inflator – free of charge. Take it to the dealership for the recall already. The agency believes Honda (Acura is the carmaker’s luxury brand) has enough spare parts to fix all of the affected cars right now, and the company is expected to prioritize recall work on these models.

Oh, and if you have a pending recall for any other problem on any other auto – please, deal with the inconvenience, and make an appointment at your dealer and get it fixed.