The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has ordered Ford to withdraw for a tedious little problem that could impact three million U.S. cars: Takata airbag inflators could break, sending deadly metal fragments flying into passengers . It is estimated to have an impact on machinery worth about $ 610 million.
This defect “caused the largest car recall in US history” Reuters reports, with 67 million individual inflators in 2.7 million US vehicles being recalled. From a certain perspective, there were only (“only”) 100 million recalls from 20 car manufacturers worldwide.
And, yes, Ford protested that it had not found enough evidence to issue a withdrawal, but would “comply with the NHTSA decision and issue a withdrawal.” The company also revealed that it is looking at a loss of $ 1.2 billion from this recall alone.
That being said, Takata’s problem was tied up up to 18 deaths in the United States alone. In one case, a driver in a car accident was killed after his airbag broke and was then ignited. In addition to the deaths, 400 drivers or passengers were injured as a result of these airbag defects, leaving some blind or maimed. It seems to be a good enough reason to issue a complaint-free withdrawal.
Here are the cars that are recalled, from CNN:
- 2007 – 2011 Ford Ranger
- Ford Fusion 2006 – 2012
- 2006 – 2012 Lincoln Zephyr
- 2007 – 2010 Ford Edge
- 2007-2010 Lincoln MKX
In addition, Mazda was forced to recall 5,800 airbag inflators in 2007-2009 B-Series trucks. NHTSA also rejected a petition by General Motors calling for it to be exempted from the withdrawal of seven million Takata airbag vehicles.
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Ford spokeswoman Monique Brentley noted that “unlike other parts of the Takata passenger airbags that were recalled earlier, these driver-based airbags contain moisture absorption. [material] and work differently. ”
However, NHTSA rejected any evidence presented by Ford under the belief that these airbags are deteriorating over time. In the end, he decided that “what Ford is presenting here, although valuable and informative in some respects, suffers from too many shortcomings.”
You can enter your VIN number on NHTSA website to see if your car is listed in recalls.