Japan’s Takata and American regulators are taking it on the chin over faulty airbags that can blast shrapnel into vehicle cabins, drivers and passengers. The OEM vendor, which has several facilities in the U.S., is receiving criticism from consumer safety advocates, media outlets and lawmakers upset with how Takata executives have been reacting – or not reacting – to the problem airbags.
And the situation is setting the stage for even wider ramifications as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is experiencing bipartisan disdain emanating from U.S. House and Senate leaders, Democrats and Republicans alike, who say that the agency has been too slow to act.
As events continue to evolve, Takata was resisting NHTSA’s demand for a national recall, insisting that the suspect airbags are only subject to failure in humid climates. On Dec. 24 the company issued a statement saying that it is “deeply saddened by the fatalities attributed to defective Takata airbags, and apologizes for the widespread concern and inconvenience caused to the driving public.”
Takata also announced that key executives were taking four-month pay cuts and that Representative Director Stefan Stocker was resigning from his positions as president and COO, and that Chairman and CEO Shigehisa Takada would be assuming Stocker’s former duties. According to the statement, “These changes have been made to further unify companywide initiatives to address the airbag safety issue, speed up decision making, and strengthen the company’s response measures.”
NHTSA has been applying heightened pressure aimed at invigorating the pace and scope of the assorted recalls being implemented among automakers. The 10 car manufacturers that installed Takata-supplied airbags in vehicles covering model years 2002 to 2008 have been initiating various recalls of their own at an ever-broadening clip, expanding worldwide into countries such as China, Japan and other non-tropical locales.
With more than 14 million vehicles already under recall, an all-encompassing endeavor is the best course to take, according to industry consultant and educator Todd Hoffman, executive director of Scene of the Accident. “I think they’ll eventually all be recalled,” he said.
Scene of the Accident, which specializes in training repairers and emergency personnel, is headquartered in the international port of Houston along the Gulf Coast – a region engulfed in high humidity and salty air. Houston’s wharves have long been filled with row upon row of parked cars and trucks offloaded from ocean-going vessels and awaiting shipment, said Hoffman.
In addition to the time spent on the docks, “a vehicle on a ship can pick up salt air, so the corrosion could have started a lot earlier no matter where the vehicle is sold.” Hoffman has been testing Takata airbags, and he believes rusting components are the culprit.
“I’ve been deploying a lot of them to capture a failure; I’m even soaking them in saltwater to see how they fail,” he reported, explaining that he requested a supply of airbags from a distributor. “They said, ‘We’ll send you a box.’ And I didn’t realize that to them ‘a box’ is 500 airbags.”
Amid the testing protocols comes the task of re-educating repairers and first-responders. Hoffman recounted a case in Florida where homicide detectives were called to a crash scene to investigate what appeared to be a murder; the victim’s throat bore evidence of knife wounds that turned out to have been caused by shrapnel exploding from the airbag.
“The big thing we’re hearing about is all the additional injuries caused when the bag deploys,” said Hoffman.
“In the rescue world it has set us back 20 years in working with airbags. We’ve been training first-responders not to be afraid of airbags, and now we have to start over,” he said, adding that the traditional “5-10-20” rule is out the window. Anyone encountering a damaged vehicle and reaching inside to retrieve people, purses and registration papers, etc. was instructed to stay five inches away from a side airbag, 10 inches away from a driver’s airbag and 20 inches away from a passenger’s airbag lest the units unexpectedly inflate. The prospect of flying metal shards renders moot that advice, and the warning carries over to automotive technicians and junkyard workers as well.
“It’s really common during the disassembly process” to have an airbag suddenly deploy. “It really justifies the need for a repair shop to properly power-down the vehicle and wait the appropriate time,” said Hoffman. After disconnecting the battery expect to stand clear for three to five minutes, or up to 15 minutes when repairing an older model. “Every vehicle is different.”
Calculate that wait-time into your estimates, Hoffman suggested. As for clients coming in with questions about their airbags, “you should be telling your customers to take it into the dealer to get it fixed. You should NOT be telling your customers to disable their airbags!”
Heightened scrutiny
With millions of suspect airbags in vehicles throughout the global carparc, there are concerns that Takata’s production pace for replacement airbags may not be robust enough to keep up with the rapidly accelerating demand.
Alby Berman, Takata’s vice president of global communications, declined to answer a series of questions submitted by Aftermarket Business World, including queries seeking advice for repairers dealing with frightened vehicle owners and asking for an update on the company’s production capacity. He instead referred drivers and installers to car company websites and issued a statement saying that “we are cooperating fully with all aspects of the government investigation and remain committed to the automakers we serve.”
Berman’s view seemed to contradict that of Hiroshi Shimizu, Takata’s senior vice president for global quality assurance, who in testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation asserted that the company was only willing to issue recalls on a limited basis, contending that “the current focus of the ongoing field actions and recalls should remain the specific regions of high absolute humidity.”
NHTSA ultimately countered that it would be taking whatever steps are necessary to compel a nationwide recall.
Questions are also being raised about exactly when Takata executives became aware of the problem airbags, complete with allegations that they engaged in a coverup.
“If these reports are true, they show a company more concerned with profits than the lives of consumers – a company that needs to be held fully accountable, not just with financial penalties, but also with criminal charges,” said U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill of the Senate’s panel on Consumer Protection. “I trust that safety regulators and Justice Department officials are looking closely at these accusations and considering every tool available under the law.”
According to McCaskill, a Democrat, Takata employees conducted airbag tests a decade ago and identified safety problems that were “subsequently covered up by company leadership.” More than 14 million vehicles have been recalled due to airbag rupture risks, with four deaths being tied to the defect.
“If the reports are true, the company must be held accountable for the horrific deaths and injuries that its wrongdoing caused,” echoed Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Ed Markey of the Senate Commerce Committee in a joint statement. “These allegations are credible and shocking – plainly warranting a prompt and aggressive criminal probe.”
They were additionally critical of NHTSA for moving too slowly in calling for a nationwide recall, urging the agency to “provide clearer guidance to drivers with potentially defective Takata airbags.”
Ire on Capitol Hill
“Sitting in air conditioned offices away from the sweltering humidity of Washington streets and away from the eyes of public scrutiny, NHTSA and Takata officials reached one of the strangest recall deals ever seen,” said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, expressing scorn for NHTSA’s previous stance on the issue.
“They agreed Takata could limit recall of airbag inflators that explode and send shrapnel into the occupant compartment to Florida, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and U.S. Virgin Islands,” Ditlow continued. “The agreement totally ignores states such as Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and others with notoriously high relative humidities – not to mention Washington, D.C. and even Portland, Ore. When it comes to a defect so deadly as an airbag inflator that kills like a shrapnel bomb, the public deserves more than a private nod from NHTSA to Takata.”
A demand for a national recall did come from NHTSA in November, a position that Takata was rejecting. “We now know that millions of vehicles must be recalled to address defective Takata air bags and our aggressive investigation is far from over,” said NHTSA Deputy Administrator David Friedman. “We’re pushing Takata and all affected manufacturers to issue the recall and to ensure the recalls capture the full scope of the problems.”
NHTSA’s delay in acting is not going over well on Capitol Hill. “Our highway safety depends on the vigilance of manufacturers as well as NHTSA. Sometimes the regulator is in the best position to find the defect and sometimes it’s the manufacturer,” said Republican U.S. Rep. Lee Terry. “The time has come to bring the facts together and make sure the unsafe airbag inflators are off the market, consumers can get their faulty parts replaced, and future recalls are handled better. The safety of America’s drivers depends on our collective success on those fronts.”
An investigation by the Government Accountability Office is being sought. “This subcommittee and the full committee have concerns about the role NHTSA plays in these continuing large scale recalls,” said Terry, “and I hope that NHTSA will fully cooperate with the GAO as GAO carries out the bipartisan request to look at NHTSA’s internal procedures and processes.”
OEM contacts
Takata provided this list of automaker websites for anyone seeking information about the company’s airbags and recall activity.
http://m.owners.honda.com/Recall
http://www.nissanusa.com/recalls-vin#/
http://www.bmwusa.com/standard/content/owner/safetyrecalls_new.aspx?mobileoverride=true
http://www.chrysler.com/webselfservice/chrysler/Recall.html
https://www.mymazda.com/MusaWeb/displayRecall.action
http://owner.ford.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Owner/Page/RecallsPage
http://www.subaru.com/vehicle-recalls.html
http://www.automd.com/recall/mitsubishi_m/
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