Honda says defective Takata airbags in 2002 used different design

[AF News Desk]

Honda Motor Co. said it was aware of a ruptured Takata airbag inflator in a car that was covered by a 2002 recall but the inflator design was different from one that ruptured in a 2004 accident.
The 2004 accident, which was not publicly disclosed until 2009, had previously been the first disclosed instance of a ruptured Takata inflator in a Honda car.
A Honda spokesman on Thursday said the 2002 recall "is unrelated to all later ruptures" and "involves a prior generation of airbag inflators than the ones that are the subject of subsequent recalls."
The airbags in both Honda cars were supplied by Japan's Takata Corp., which made the airbags installed in more than 10 million cars from Honda and other manufacturers that have been recalled since 2008.
A Takata spokesman on Thursday confirmed that the ruptured inflator involved in the 2002 Honda recall was of a different design that the ones involved in later recalls that began in 2008.
Inflators in the later-model Takata airbags have been susceptible to rupture, especially when exposed to moisture, and can spray hot metal fragments into vehicle occupants. The defective airbags and inflators have been linked to at least five deaths, all in Honda cars.
U.S. government safety records showed that Honda recalled a small number of cars equipped with Takata airbags in March 2002, two years before the first known injury that Honda and Takata have linked to a defective inflator, Reuters revealed on Wednesday.
In its official recall notice in 2002, Honda told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that inflators in passenger airbags in the 2000 Honda Accord and 2000 Acura TL could rupture because of improper welds.
In the same notice, Honda said a dealer in November 2001 reported an "improper deployment" of a Takata airbag in an Accord, and that Honda and Takata immediately began an investigation and inspected the vehicle. No passenger was seated in the car when the airbag deployed, Honda said, and no injuries were reported.
A senior Honda executive told a U.S. Senate hearing last week that the automaker first learned of an inflator rupture in 2004.
"This remained the only rupture we were aware of until three years later," Rick Schostek, Honda North America executive vice president, said at the hearing.
On Thursday, a Honda spokesman said Schostek was referring to the later-model inflators, not the ones involved in the 2002 recall. That recalled involved 2000 model year cars. The spokesman said the inflator design was changed for the 2001 model year.
The 2001 accident involved in the 2002 recall is the first incident of a ruptured Takata inflator in a Honda vehicle that Honda is aware of, the Honda spokesman said Thursday.
"The issue identified in the 2002 inflator recall is quite different from the propellant-related issues identified" in later-model inflators referenced by Schostek, the spokesman said.
The ruptured inflator involved in the 2002 Honda recall was not mentioned by Schostek in the Senate hearing because "it is not relevant to the issues associated with the Takata airbag inflator ruptures that were the subject of the hearing," the spokesman said.
The spokesman also said the propellant in the inflators involved in the 2002 recall "is of a different formula and physical shape than the propellant used in later designs that have been recalled."
A congressional subcommittee has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday Dec. 3 on the Takata recalls.

http://www.autonews.com/article/2014...EM10/141129881