22,834 Honda City, Jazz & Accord cars RECALLED in India

Honda Cars India has just announced a safety recall for 22,834 units of 2013-year models of the City sedan, Jazz hatchback and Accord luxury sedan. The cars are being recalled to fix a faulty passenger-side airbag. This recall is a part of the global Takata airbag scam where the airbag manufacturing company withheld information about faulty airbag inflators for years from multiple car makers ranging from BMW to Honda. In India alone, the Takata airbag scam has affected 3.1 lakh Honda cars. Globally, millions of cars have been affected.

Meanwhile, here’s Honda’s official statement on the latest recall,

HCIL will voluntarily replace Takata passenger front airbag inflators of 22,834 vehicles of 2013 model of Accord, City and Jazz as part of Honda’s precautionary global recall campaign concerning Takata front airbag inflators. The replacement will be carried out free of cost at HCIL dealerships across India in a phased manner starting immediately. HCIL reiterates the importance of replacing the defective Takata front airbag inflators urgently as they may deploy with excessive internal pressure when activated. The airbag inflator casing might rupture which may result in injury or safety risk to the vehicle occupants.

What’s the Takata airbag scam all about?

Japanese airbags manufacturer Takata manufactured millions of defective airbags that it shipped out to car makers around the world. Since Takata did not use a chemical drying agent in the airbags it shipped out, moisture caused some of the installed airbags to explode in cars without actually being triggered. This has caused severe injuries and in some cases, even deaths as airbags (which contain ammonium nitrate-based propellent ) deploy with explosive force. Even after discovering this defect, Takata hid it from automakers fearing large penalties. Eventually, when investigators figured why airbags were exploding on their own,  Takata admitted guilt, and car makers started recalling millions of cars that were fitted with faulty airbags.

If you own a City or a Jazz or an Accord, get in touch with the nearest Honda dealer to find out if your car is impacted by the latest Takata airbag recall. For your own safety, it’s important that you get the airbag replaced free of cost through the recall at the earliest.