Honda Recall Issued Over Air Bag Problems

Honda is recalling 304,000 Accord, Civic, Odyssey, CR-V, Pilot and Acura vehicles due to problems with the air bags, which could deploy with too much pressure and release pieces of plastic or metal toward the driver or passengers. 

Approximately 273,000 of the vehicles involved in the Honda airbag recall were sold in the United States.

According to the announcement released by Honda Motor Co. on December 1, the air bags can explode with such ferocity that they may cause serious injury or death. The auto maker indicates that is aware of several “incidents” related to the air bag problems, which appear to only occur on the driver’s side.

The company issued a similar recall for many of the same vehicle types in 2009, after at least one person was killed by a Honda air bag, and several others were injured by flying debris hurled out of the over-inflated airbags.

Honda considers the most recent recall to be an expansion of the 2009 Honda airbag recall.

The recall affects certain 2001 and 2002 Accord, 2001 to 2003 Civic, 2001 to 2003 Odyssey, 2002 and 2003 CR-V, 2003 Pilot, 2002 and 2003 Acura 3.2 TL and 2003 Acura 3.2 CL vehicles which had the airbags originally installed. In addition, the company believes there are about 640 vehicles which received the defective airbag inflators after being repaired following auto accidents or other repairs. The company does not know which vehicles received the defective inflators, so the company intends to inspect another 603,000 vehicles.

The company says that it will begin notifying affected drivers later this month. Honda recommends that Honda owners take their vehicles to an authorized dealer as soon as they receive a mail notification from the company that their car is on the list. For more information, Honda owners can go to www.recalls.honda.com or call (800) 999-1009 and select option 4.

Photo Courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hectoralejandro/ / CC BY 2.0