Reuters reports that after a back-and-forth that lasted over a year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced on Wednesday that it will not seek an immediate safety recall for as many as 51 million airbag inflators, many of which are equipped in GM vehicles.
“NHTSA is specifically looking to gather more information on the technical and engineering differences between the inflators as installed into the manufacturers’ respective vehicles, as well as differences in processes among the relevant factories and manufacturing lines,” the agency said on Wednesday.
This issue dates back to October 2023, when GM said more than 20 million GM vehicles may contain faulty airbag inflators. When activated, the airbag inflators from suppliers ARC Automotive and Delphi Automotive carry a risk of explosively launching shrapnel into the vehicle’s interior. Delphi Automotive manufactured about 11 million of the potentially defective inflators under a licensing agreement with ARC Automotive, which supplied the rest.
The NHTSA later proposed a safety recall potentially affecting 52 million airbag inflators, which was opposed by GM, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Stellantis due to the rarity of the defects; one death and seven injuries were reported. GM made a statement saying such a recall would affect “as much as 15% of the over 300 million registered motor vehicles in the United States.”
However, the NHTSA stood by its consideration as recently as July 2024, revising its recall estimate to 51 million inflators. “Common sense demands acknowledging that metal shrapnel projecting at high speeds and causing injury or death presents an unreasonable risk to safety,” NHTSA said at the time.
The airbags in question were manufactured between 2000 and 2018 and supplied to 13 different automakers. Other automakers impacted by the potential defect include Ford, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Porsche, and Jaguar Land Rover.
Comments
This airbag fiasco just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Now my 2017 is involved. Also disgusting.
comes down to, if the accident does not deform your face, the airbag will.
Gotta live the slow-motion videos we’ve all seen for decades, with the crash test dummy and that nice pillow-like air bag. All soft and cozy, right?
When it really happens in an instant, and that airbag is as hard as plywood. Yes better than head-smacking the dash or a pillar and really getting hurt, but even when everything goes right (i.e no shrapnel) it’s no pillow and one’s still going to get roughed up.
If you happen to be wearing glasses you can expect some facial lacerations too.
So, there was an argument about rather or not vehicles with potentially deadly airbag inflators should be recalled and fixed? So that if one inflates, it doesn’t throw shrapnel?
And GM argued in favor of leaving their customers at risk by not recalling the vehicles?
And now the NHTSA has agreed to let us all drive our vehicles that may or may not have shrapnel-flinging airbag inflators?
And for what reason? What’s wrong with this picture?
Gm likes to play the waiting game, u don’t have to repair cars that are no longer on the road. So keep fighting in court to keep pushing dates farther out and they will same money. Who cares if someone loses an eye.
Tire scrapments on the highway are 10 times more dangerous than an air bag inflator. Don’t see NHTSA going after big rigs for throwing their tires all over the freeway. Until they do, they can go stick their headsin the toilet.
Just go down to Lowe’s or Home Depot and get you a face shield. Problem solved! Seriously, I would rather ditch the air bags in favor of a decent 4 point harness that will keep you away from the dash in the event of a crash. Might even want to include a “big brake” kit to get some real stopping power.
Hmmm, more and more I am very pleased that I kept my nice 74 Chevy Monte Carlo. Has no airbag, no catalytic convertor, no computers, no complicated doodads under the hood. These old cars, were minimally designed so that owners could easily do their own repairs, often with very simple inexpensive tools, with parts still available. Runs well on regular pump gas, and has always passed local emissions tests.