It will take at least a year – perhaps up to five years – before all of Takata’s potentially faulty airbags are properly replaced.
En route to becoming the largest recall in American history, rivaling 1982’s recall of 31 million bottles of possibly poisoned Tylenol tablets, the logistical headaches occurring throughout the automotive supply chain are also presenting business opportunities for the manufacturers, vendors and repairers taking part in the remedy.
At 34 million vehicles and counting, automakers are adding additional models to the airbag replacement list on a seemingly daily basis. Takata-supplied airbags are installed on 20 percent of the world’s automotive fleet.
Motorists are being urged to frequently check with the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) at www.safercar.gov/vin to see if their vehicle is newly included in the recall, especially since Takata is reporting that some of the company’s previously recalled and replaced airbag units will have to be replaced yet again.
Safety officials are cautioning that shops should never disable a concerned customer’s suspect airbag, insisting that drivers should instead seek a loaner car from their dealership until the proper remedies are completed.
“The sooner you contact a dealer, the sooner you’ll get on the list for repairs,” says automotive specialist Jack Gillis at the Consumer Federation of America. “Traditional recall response rates are around 70 percent, so in the end, if consumers don’t respond to this recall, there could potentially be over 10 million vehicles with this dangerous defect on the road,” he notes.
“While the root cause of this problem is not fully understood, humid regions with high moisture in the air can exacerbate the problem. Consumers in those areas have likely already received a recall notice and should respond immediately,” says Gillis.
Independent aftermarket repairers are unlikely to be getting airbag replacement jobs unless you have obtained appropriate OEM certification status, says industry trainer and consultant Todd Hoffman, executive director at Scene Of The Accident.
“If you put that airbag in there you have to make sure all the systems are functioning correctly,” he points out. “The whole dash has to come out,” plus the various panels have to be color matched to blend with existing time-worn interior finishes. “They don’t want ‘John Doe’ to be doing this.”
“Ultimately, the question does come up for repairers,” says Aaron Schulenburg executive director at the Society of Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS), “and their best course of action is to direct the vehicle owner to the manufacturer dealer to process any outstanding recalls.”
Operations holding the correct certifications, however, are in position to achieve a considerable amount of work, according to Hoffman. As replacement airbag supply catches up with the staggering levels of demand, “the dealerships (and certified shops) will have to put a technician on who does nothing but airbags all day. If they can upsell – that’s what the service managers will be pushing,” he says.
“This is a real mess when you’re talking about doing something of this magnitude,” Hoffman observes. “I’d hate to be the guy whose job it is to figure out how to do all this and put that jigsaw puzzle together.”
While an individual Airbag Czar has yet to be designated, the U.S. government is tasked with coordinating the replacement process amid heightened oversight by Congress and mounting criticism from consumer advocacy groups for not clamping down sooner on Takata’s alleged recalcitrance in forthrightly addressing the issue.
“The Department of Transportation is taking the proactive steps necessary to ensure that defective inflators are replaced with safe ones as quickly as possible, and that the highest risks are addressed first. We will not stop our work until every airbag is replaced,” declares U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.
“We all know that there is more work to do, for NHTSA, for the automakers, for parts suppliers and for consumers,” concurs NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind, “but we are determined to get to our goal as rapidly as possible.”
Testing and investigation by Takata, impacted auto manufacturers and independent researchers have yet to establish a definitive root cause of the inflator malfunctions. “NHTSA’s analysis of test results and engineering reports from independent organizations points to moisture infiltrating the defective inflators over extended periods of time as a factor,” Rosekind reports.
“Over time, that moisture causes changes in the structure of the chemical propellant that ignites when an airbag deploys,” he says. “The degraded propellant ignites too quickly, producing excess pressure that causes the inflator to rupture and sends metal shards into the passenger cabin that can lead to serious injury or death.”
Takata airbags have thus far been linked to six fatalities and more than 100 injuries. Some of the victims looked like they had been attacked with a knife.
Scene Of The Accident’s Hoffman resides in Texas along the Gulf Coast, and he too has embarked upon investigating the faulty airbags. “I’m right on the beach with all that salty air,” he says. Multiple airbag units are sitting exposed to the breezes and soaking in buckets filled with ocean-water. Hoffman is working with a local television news crew and its special super slow-motion camera to document the outcomes. “They’re getting ready to get blown up; I want to duplicate the cylinder explosion and catch it on camera.”
A unified approach
“As this recall moves forward, NHTSA and automakers must work together on behalf of consumers. Auto manufacturers have been concerned from the outset that the Takata recall may erode public confidence in a proven technology that has saved thousands of lives over the years,” according to Alliance of Auto Manufacturers President and CEO Mitch Bainwol, who testified before a Congressional committee in June.
“A clear, unified approach to the recall and remedy process is the most effective way to minimize owner confusion and improve participation rates for this recall. It is also important that NHTSA continue to have a prominent voice among its international counterparts, given the global nature of this recall,” says Bainwol.
“Affected Alliance members are committed to working cooperatively with NHTSA as it addresses a number of issues – including sourcing, production, allocation, delivery, installation and adequacy of the remedy,” he says.
Securing adequate stacks of airbag units for your parts carts is going to be an ongoing challenge given the volumes needed to fulfill the recall’s requirements.
Although other industry fulfillment estimates have the recall efforts extending for up to five years, CEO Scott Upham at Valient Market Research is anticipating a targeted completion date of September 2016. “Replacement inflator kits are being shipped to authorized OEM parts distribution centers and then onto dealerships on an express basis,” he says.
TRW, Daicel and Autoliv are among the suppliers that have joined Takata’s airbag replacement efforts.
Takata is currently producing 450,000 inflator replacements per month with the goal of providing a million per month by this-coming September.
“We have started deliveries now and will ramp up throughout 2015,” says Autoliv Vice President of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations Thomas Jonsson. “The additional capacity of up 25 million inflators that we are currently preparing for is estimated for delivery in 2015 and 2016.”
Completing the correct engineering can be a time-consuming process. “Airbags, including the inflator, are designed specifically for each car model. Although they might be very similar, validation and testing is needed for each car model,” Jonsson tells Aftermarket Business World.
“We had received requests of alternative supply parts for Takata incidents from Takata itself and also from several auto manufacturers, and now we are preparing further production lines for this supply, mainly in Japan and the U.S.,” reports Masahiko Hirokawa, Daicel’s general manager for investor relations and corporate communications.
The company’s Japanese plant is already in increased production mode; Daicel’s expanded U.S. airbag replacement capacity is expected to be fully implemented by spring 2016, according to Hirokawa.
Inducing driver participation
In the meantime, “Disabling of a vehicle’s airbag modules is never advised,” warns Valient’s Upham. “Service professionals that disable airbag modules in affected vehicles many incur legal and financial liability in the event of an accident.”
Assuming you can procure adequate supply, approved installers additionally face the task of encouraging recall customers to actually arrive at your bay doors.
According to NHTSA, the average motorist recall participation rate is just 75 percent despite the no-charge rendering of service. And participation rates vary widely depending on the age of the involved vehicle.
Newer-vehicle recall participation averages 83 percent; for 5- to 10-year-old vehicles it drops nearly in half to 44 percent; and for vehicles older than 10 years the participation rate falls by another two-thirds to 15 percent.
“While we know that participation rates vary by vehicle age, we don’t have a good understanding of why vehicle owners don’t respond to – in many instances – multiple notices that their vehicle needs free repairs to fix a safety-related defect,” says Bainwol at the Alliance of Auto Manufacturers, adding that the organization has initiated a multi-faceted research project “to understand what motivates consumers to participate in a recall and get their recalled vehicles remedied.”
Individual industry manufacturers impacted by the recall are also implementing mass media advertising campaigns aimed at inducing drivers to bring their vehicles in for the necessary repairs.
