This new round of recalls, announced Wednesday, affects US-market vehicles from BMW, Fiat Chrysler, Honda and Subaru, among others. The problem with these already-repaired vehicles is that during the early stages of the recall, Takata replaced dangerous old inflators with new ones of the exact same design and chemistry.
FCA representatives are stating that, while a total of around 50,000 vehicles were affected since the first rounds of this particular recall went out in 2015, there are no new VIN numbers being added to the list. Meanwhile, Honda's representatives say the company's been working on this particular recall since June of 2019, six months before the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration decision.
According to a report Wednesday by Automotive News, Takata believed that since the problem with the inflators was exacerbated by time, temperature and humidity, replacing the inflators with new ones was the best way forward. It wasn't.
Eventually, Takata reformulated the inflator's explosive propellant, adding a drying compound that helps to preserve the unit for much longer. That's what's now being installed in many cars, even though Takata went out of business and was purchased by a Chinese company in 2018. Some companies have opted to go a different way entirely, sourcing airbag inflators from different companies that had nothing to do with Takata.
According to the NHTSA, more than 38 million vehicles have been repaired in the seven years since the recalls started. It also estimates that there were nearly 13 million still-defective parts installed in vehicles as of November 2019.
(Score: 2, Informative) by XivLacuna on Sunday January 12 2020, @06:56AM (7 children)
I'd rather use harness seat belts rather than have an explosive device pointed at my face. Removing airbags will also allow parents to keep their small children in the front seat where they are less likely to forget them and have them roast during hot weather.
Airbags have been a design failure ever since they were implemented and it is about time we retire them.
(Score: 3, Informative) by EJ on Sunday January 12 2020, @11:34AM (1 child)
Race drivers wear helmets and neck braces for a reason. That harness isn't going to stop you from breaking your neck.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 12 2020, @02:21PM
Honest question: what are the neck break rates with / without airbags? I think it's rather low, either way.
Several reasons: high overall accident rate while racing, extreme delta V of collisions while racing, high probability of "wall strike" while racing, limited ability of racing vehicles to absorb the energy of accident collisions while racing.
Don't see any race drivers wearing helmets or neck braces while driving on the public roads, for several other good reasons.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 12 2020, @01:46PM (4 children)
I had the same thoughts about early design airbags, which were "one size fits all" -- powerful enough to stop an adult...and too powerful for small/light people/children. Smaller people also typically sit closer to the steering wheel, so get a bigger hit from the airbag. I kept my 1992 car (no airbag, shoulder belt attached to door) until I could replace it with a car that had second generation airbags. A good explanation here for anyone interested, https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/164/2/161/74448 [oup.com]
Annnnd, once again, it seems to be all about the children(grin), fat bastards should keep their first generation airbag cars.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 12 2020, @02:24PM (2 children)
Because in 1990 serious injury and deaths in auto accidents were still mainly attributed to unbelted vehicle occupants.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by PocketSizeSUn on Monday January 13 2020, @09:21AM (1 child)
And the other humorous bit is that an unbelted occupant had a non-zero tendency to be diverted from going out the windshield (survivable) to going out the roof of the vehicle (deadly).
Airbags alone probably come close to being zero benefit with the reduction in injury almost entirely due to the monumental shift in seatbelt use and little to do with airbags themselves.
It's probably not as bad as anti-lock brakes, which are a total negative outcome in terms if accident reduction.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 13 2020, @02:11PM
The psychology campaign with mandatory child seats was probably the most effective thing done at the time.
I haven't seen any anti-lock brake negative outcome statistics, but I might liken that to the increased risk of injury when wearing rubber sneakers on wet floors. People who wear relatively slick leather bottom shoes tend to walk more carefully all the time, never depending on "sneaker traction" because it's never there. On the other hand sneakers provide much better traction until they don't, and people actually tend to fall more often and with greater injuries when their sneakers fail to provide them traction on a slick floor.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by NickM on Sunday January 12 2020, @09:22PM
I a master of typographic, grammatical and miscellaneous errors !
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 12 2020, @07:02AM (3 children)
The chemistry gets blamed, but it actually was a superior chemistry. The problem was a combination of contamination and poor physical design.
Ammonium nitrate, which was used in the Takata inflators, is relatively non-toxic. (you could eat a small amount without trouble) The resulting gasses are relatively non-toxic. If the reaction were to be complete (not that this happens perfectly) the gasses would even be fully breathable with more oxygen content than air.
The other brands use awful chemicals like sodium azide. The azide compounds are horribly toxic, and the exhaust gasses are horribly toxic too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 12 2020, @01:33PM
Might be low toxicity chemistry but that hardly matters if the container is shattered--shards from the housing are what injure people.
As an armchair engineer, I wonder if the container could be modified so that even damp Ammonium nitrate (a bigger bang than the original design expected) would not damage the container. Could be a change to a more ductile material or modified design with thicker sections. Thinking further, even if the container stayed intact, the more powerful explosion might inflate the airbag too fast or too hard, which can also be dangerous.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 12 2020, @02:27PM (1 child)
The problem as I see it is an attitude that vehicles will be purchased, financed for 5 maybe 7 years, sold on the used market, driven another 3 to 5 years and disposed of. "Oh, our modules are going bad after 10 years, dear me, let's just replace them with the exact same thing - nobody keeps cars for 20+ years...."
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 13 2020, @08:32PM
yep, and i'm the "nobody" they are referring to...