The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has ordered Ford to issue a recall for a minor annoying problem that could impact three million of its cars in the United States: Takata airbag inflators could rupture, sending deadly metal fragments to passengers. It is estimated to have an impact of around $ 610 million on machines.
This defect “generated the biggest automotive recall in the history of the United States”, Reuters reports, with 67 million individual inflators in 2.7 million US vehicles being collected. For some perspective, there were only (“only”) 100 million inflator recalls by 19 different car manufacturers In all world.
And yes, Ford protested that it did not find enough evidence to issue a recall, but “will respect the NHTSA decision and issue a recall”. The company also revealed that it is forecasting a loss of $ 1.2 billion from this recall alone.
That said, Takata’s problem has been switched on to 18 deaths in the United States alone. In one case, a driver in a car accident died after his airbag burst and caught fire. In addition to the deaths, 400 drivers or passengers were injured as a result of these airbag failures, leaving some blind or mutilated. It seems to be a good enough reason to issue a recall without complaints.
Here are the cars being collected, CNN:
- Ford Ranger 2007 to 2011
- 2006 to 2012 Ford Fusion
- 2006 to 2012 Lincoln Zephyr
- 2007 to 2010 Ford Edge
- 2007 to 2010 Lincoln MKX
In addition, Mazda was forced to recall 5,800 air bag inflators in the 2007-2009 Series B pickups. NHTSA also rejected a petition from General Motors asking to be exempt from the recall of seven million vehicles with Takata airbags.
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Ford spokeswoman Monique Brentley noted that “unlike other Takata passenger-side airbag parts previously recalled, these driver-side airbags contain a moisture-absorbing filter [material] and perform differently. ”
NHTSA, however, rejected any evidence submitted by Ford on the belief that these airbags deteriorate over time. Ultimately, he decided that “what Ford presents here, while valuable and informative in some ways, has many shortcomings”.
You can enter your VIN number in the NHTSA website to see if your car is listed in the recalls.