The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
used as a reference point a test that has been recently carried out, showing that the risk for a dangerous air bag inflator rupture in a crash is around 50% in some of the 2001-2003 model Honda and Acura cars. Takata air bag inflators are also linked to 14 deaths worldwide, including 13 in Honda Motor Co vehicles.
As U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx argues, "With as high as a 50 percent chance of a dangerous air bag inflator rupture in a crash, these vehicles are unsafe and need to be repaired immediately. Folks should not drive these vehicles unless they are going straight to a dealer to have them repaired immediately, free of charge."
When the problem was announced, even the U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, made a statement, requesting immediate actions.
Honda publically agreed with analysis and encouraged the drivers of the 313,000 vehicles to visit the nearest dealer to get the problem fixed. As Honda said, the cars “should only be driven to a dealer in order to have their Takata air bag inflators replaced as rapidly as possible."
Honda claims that it wasn’t long ago that it received NHTSA’s analysis that revealed a very high rupture rate in laboratory testing, after having tested the front driver air bag inflators on 2001-2003 vehicles in Florida. Since then Honda has done its best to repair as many vehicles as possible reaching the pretty satisfactory 70 percent of the faulty vehicles that came with this version of inflator. Among those vehicles are the 2001-2002 Honda Accord, Honda Civic, 2002 Honda CR-V, Honda Odyssey, 2003 Honda Pilot, 2002-2003 Acura 3.2 TL and 2003 Acura 3.2CL.
