Honda will recall around 341000 Accord sedans in USA over restraint system

An airbag recall by Continental Automotive Systems is now believed to affect some 5m vehicles worldwide, writes Brian Byrne.

Takata’s inflators are equipped with an ammonium nitrate, a chemical propellant which is said to be unstable especially in high-humidity areas like the southeastern United States, and can explode with too much force, blowing apart a metal canister and sending shrapnel into the passenger compartment.

The defective airbags are blamed for nine deaths in the U.S. The company will mail interim recall notices to owners by mid-March, with a second notice to follow when parts become available – likely this fall. Older models can experience a failure of their airbag control units, which means the supplemental restraint system, or SRS, may not deploy in a crash.

Honda has issued recalls for all models affected, which include 2008-2010 Accord models. A panel commissioned by Takata to review its safety and quality efforts said this week the Japanese supplier must make significant improvements to address quality problems to avoid such defects in the future. Recalled vehicles will have their faulty airbag inflators removed and replaced with parts from an alternative supplier. However, Honda notes that vehicle identification numbers associated with the expanded recall haven’t been confirmed, so you won’t be able to carry out VIN searches on those sites just yet. At least 11 people have been reported dead worldwide, and 139 injured from the problem, according to Forbes.

In a Thursday disclosure, Continental Automotive Systems – a unit of Germany-based Continental AG – said that it had supplied potentially defective air bag control units to 5 million vehicles across the world.

Continental estimates that less than two million of the vehicles are in the U.S. This latest action by the NHTSA brings the total number of recalled airbag…

That comes amid Takata’s exploding airbag crisis.

But many are wondering why they have to wait. Both Takata and Honda have been aware of this glitch for over a decade, when an air bag exploded in a 2002 Honda Accord.

Own a Honda vehicle? In addition, another 4 million other cars and trucks could be subject to recall because they use a different type of inflator that ruptured three times in recent tests of theToyota RAV4, NHTSA said.