Is The Takata Airbag Recall Saga Finally Coming To An End?

Takata Corporation is recalling another 10 million potentially deadly air bag inflators sold to 14 different automakers. This might possibly put an end to the epic recall saga. Markedly, this is set to be the final phase in the series of recalls that the now-bankrupt auto supplier had agreed to undertake in a 2015 settlement with U.S. safety regulators. Reportedly, the 10 million inflators are among the approximately 70 million in the United States that Takata was supposed to recall in compliance with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (“NHTSA”) accord. This will likely bring to close the largest series of automotive safety recalls in the U.S. history.

According to government documents, vehicles made by automakers including Toyota Motor (NYSE:TM) , Honda Motor (NYSE:HMC) , Ford (NYSE:F) , General Motors (NYSE:GM) , Daimler AG (NYSE:F) , BMW AG (NYSE:F) , Fiat Chrysler (NYSE:F) , Ferrari (NYSE:RACE), Mitsubishi, Subaru, Volkswagen (DE:VOWG_p), Mazda, Audi and Nissan have been affected. While a few car companies have already made such announcements, most are yet to determine the models that are affected and issue safety recalls.

A couple of days back, Subaru announced recalls of nearly 500,000 vehicles from 2003-2014 model years that have potentially lethal Takata airbags in the front passenger seat. Affected Subaru vehicles include Baja, Forester Impreza, Legacy, Outback and WRX models. The recall also covers the 2005 and 2006 Saab 9-2x made by Subaru for General Motors. The defect might result in airbags either exploding or under inflating during deployment.

Toyota, Suzuki and Mazda have also recently issued voluntary recalls for more than 18,000 vehicles. The affected models are built between 1996 and 1999,and are fitted with deadly Takata NADI 5-AT airbags. Notably, Toyota is offering to buy back the vehicles and providing rental car option until the airbag is replaced. Mazda and Suzuki are also offering to buy the affected vehicles back from the owners.

In December 2019, BMW, Audi and Ford had recalled around 17,000 vehicles with Takata NADI 5-AT airbags. These airbags could injure people in the car by misdeploying in an accident. In some cases, these are not fully inflated in a crash, thereby failing to protect drivers properly. Last month, Takata issued recalls for 1.4 million airbag inflators equipped on certain U.S. cars from the 1995-2000 model years. The Japanese auto supplier’s largest customer Honda, which is a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) firm, recalled around 1.1 million cars with faulty Takata airbags. You can see Original post

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Written By: Zacks Investment Research