The Largest Autos Recall Ever Now Affects 33.8M Vehicles

Photo: REUTERS/Toru Hanai

Japanese air bag manufacturer Takata Corp is doubling a recall of potentially deadly air bags to nearly 34 million vehicles, making it the largest automotive recall in American history, U.S. safety regulators said on Tuesday.

The recall involves passenger- and driver-side air bag inflators in vehicles made by 11 automakers, the U.S. Department of Transportation, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Takata said. It expands on the 16.6 million vehicles called back for repairs for the same issue in previous regional and national recalls, and boosts the number of vehicles affected globally since 2008 to more than 53 million.

Regulators linked six deaths worldwide to defective Takata air bags which exploded too violently and shot shrapnel into the vehicles.

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Takata CEO Shigehisa Takada said in a statement: “We are pleased to have reached this agreement with NHTSA, which represents a clear path forward.” The company declined to say whether markets outside the United States would be affected.

It was only under pressure from U.S. regulators that Takata agreed to the expanded recall. It had previously resisted expanding the recalls, saying the defect cited by automakers was not “officially recognized.”

Toyota, Nissan and Honda had expanded their Takata recalls over the past week.

The automakers have said they decided to proceed with their recalls after finding some Takata air bag inflators were not sealed properly, allowing moisture to seep in to the propellant casing. Moisture damages the propellant and can lead to an inflator exploding with too much force.

The six deaths linked to the defective air bags have all been in cars made by Honda, Takata’s biggest customer, which has borne the brunt of the recalls to date.

Takata shares slid 10 percent on Wednesday to their lowest in more than a month, and are down 46 percent since the recall crisis worsened in late September. Honda shares ended flat.

Japanese carmakers and Takata said it will take them two months to work through the data and decide how Takata’s U.S. action might affect recalls worldwide. It is not immediately clear how many vehicles are potentially involved in the recalls, as cars with two air bags under recall could be double-counted.

NHTSA also cautioned that the U.S. numbers were preliminary and subject to change.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said NHTSA also issued a consent order to Takata, requiring the supplier to cooperate in the safety agency’s probe as well as any oversight.