A minimum of 20 million GM vehicles may be equipped with defective airbag inflators from Tennessee-based ARC Automotive that carry a risk of explosively launching shrapnel into the vehicle interior when activated, regulators say.
GM is one of eleven automakers that fitted their passenger vehicles, the Wall Street Journal says, with a total of at least 52 million potentially defective inflators installed in vehicles from all the companies combined.
GM vehicles have been involved in at least one lethal malfunction of an ARC airbag inflator, along with several injuries. Overall, metal shrapnel from bursting inflators is known to have killed two people and wounded several others in various accidents. Other major car companies using the ARC components include Ford, Hyundai, Toyota, and Volkswagen.
Previously, GM has voluntarily recalled several models of vehicles across its various brands in an effort to address the potentially defective airbag inflators. This spring, it recalled 995,000 units of the Chevy Traverse, the GMC Acadia, and the Buick Enclave in the United States alone.
The government’s current initiative, however, could lead to a much more extensive recall. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or NHTSA requested that ARC Automotive recall its airbag inflators. However, the company refused outright to do so, retorting that its inflators have been proven safe by extensive field testing both by the company and various regulatory agencies.
ARC notes that investigators have been unable to replicate – even once – the dangerous explosion of shrapnel from the airbag inflator under controlled conditions, despite numerous attempts to do so. In its written response, ARC said it “strongly disagrees with the Agency’s ‘tentative conclusion’ that a safety defect exists in the 67 million” inflators it has produced. It argues the dangerous explosions are “one-off” events that do not justify a universal recall.
With ARC unwilling to recall its inflators, the NHTSA called a hearing to work out a plan for dealing with the matter, a highly unusual step in the automotive safety world. An ARC lawyer was present at the hearing and made brief statements.
The NHTSA wants a recall of all 52 million inflators believed to be installed in vehicles, a number that would include at least 20 million GM vehicles. GM did not send a representative to the hearing, though it issued a separate statement that “the reason for these inflator ruptures remains unknown” and that it is continuing its own internal investigation of the issue.
The NHTSA maintains that the problem is too unpredictable to be left to recalls of individual models for certain model years. It claims blockage of a vent in the airbag inflator module causes excessive buildup of pressure and a shrapnel-launching explosion. Investigator Sharon Yukevich summed up the agency’s position by stating “a recall of the entire subject population will address this risk.”
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Comments
This is very concerning and right after UAW, it could be disastrous for the company. Didn’t they learn after Takata disaster? GM really needs to step up their quality.
Yeah that’s not going to happen.
Fortunately chapter 7 is coming.
This isn’t GM’s fault, actually its really NHTSA fault for saying they are always needed. The truth is the side impact airbags are the best to make someone survice. Front Airbags seem to cause more harm than good. Every person that i know that has been in accident the air bag did more damage to them than the seatbelt. I make sure I sent as far back from the air bags as possible.
Please read the article. ARC is the supplier of the airbag inflator which is the source of the article. NOT GM.
GM may not be the only company forced to recall their vehicles if that happens.
If we can all get the helmet problem solved.
You know what cars won’t be recalled for airbag issues? My 1986 and 1988 Cadillac’s!!
Comfortable, quiet, ride nice, low costs and cars. A quadruple win for me.
You aren’t wrong. Older vehicles look better by the day next to what all these upcoming vehicles plans are.
“NHTSA maintains that the problem is too unpredictable to be left to recalls of individual models for certain model years. It claims blockage of a vent in the airbag inflator module causes excessive buildup of pressure and a shrapnel-launching explosion. Investigator Sharon Yukevich summed up the agency’s position by stating “a recall of the entire subject population will address this risk.”
This doesn’t add up. The NHTSA states the reason the inflator explodes but yet they can’t replicate the problem. If you can’t replicate the problem and the parts passed all testing then logically you really don’t know the reason. If you can’t identify the problem a shotgun approach to fixing an unknown issue solves nothing.
I recall the WSJ article also mentioned that the chances of injury were 1 in 370,000. Given the airbag population, the chances of death must be 1 in several million. Those numbers would easily fall into the SPC/SQC modeling for random faulty parts facing all mass production parts. Basically they could replace all the airbags and still face the same statistical odds there would be some bad inflators.
The vent can be blocked by debris, specifically welding slag, inside the inflator.
It would certainly be helpful to know which model years are affected.
Model years 2009 and newer comprising 54M inflators and north of 26M vehicles.
Of that, there have been 7 injuries and one death…some of which are disputed.
Specific models?
One airbag inflator from Arc compared to takata billions of airbags.
Maybe the person was sleepy when making the airbag?
Get rid of the damn airbags and people need to learn how to drive and stay off your stupid cell phones!!!! Pay attention people!!!!!
That’s not the problem (staying off the phone and learning to drive)- not in SoCal- the damned people on their phones don’t even look up to see when the light turns green!
What about the damn tire framents that be flying down the highway coming from big trucks. These tire fragments are one thousand times more likely to cause harm to motorists. Stop the re-capping or re-treading these tires. When the NTSHA stop the sale of these un- safe truck tires , then they will gain some credibility in my book. Until then they can go to —-
Dwight: Great point. I’d add in there these big pickup trucks with after-market (oversized) rims/tires that look like some back woods shop installed them. I always get nervous when coming up behind or along side one of those and see the wheels sticking way out and sometimes even wobbling. Out here in California about 6 months ago there was one came off and some Kia couldn’t avoid it, hitting it and flying into the air. If I recall, GM Authority had an article showing that. Then let’s talk about semi’s or haulers with no cover to their loads. Nothing like a big gust of wind tossing that nasty old mattress off the back and into lanes of traffic!
The after-market, windshield-replacement Companies love those aggressive-tread tires that the good old boys insist they have to have “sticking way out” that throw all kinds of rocks and gravel up into following or passing vehicle’s windshields. It used to be true that running those negative-offset wheels like that put tremendous strain on wheel bearings and caused early failure and expensive replacement. States without them need to enact statutes requiring the entire tread of a tire to be covered.
Utah is filled with these idiots with the truck jacked up to the sky and cheap Chinese wheels a foot out of the wheelwells. No enforcement of any laws here so I doubt much will be done to change it. Driveline angles all screwed up and offset completely wrong. A front end nightmare.
People are dumb sheep. Not going to change. Just get worse.
Tell the drivers to check tire pressure once in a while.you put a heavy load on a tire with low pressure bingo it comes apart when it gets hot.