This can of worms has not even been opened all the way. What I find scary is the term "shrapnel" came from a deputy at the scene of one of the alledged air bag fatalities of an older Honda. It has now blown into a bankrupt company,a new mass advertised class action suit of GM vehicles with allegedly troubled air bags back into the early 2000's,and a brand new pile of reasons for more regulation and higher car prices. Someone needs to REALLY investigate the subject and prove how many lives were saved from these innovations and put the sideline profiteers in their place.
I will bet you that the GE Jet engines, with the fan disk failure this week killing one and injuring 7, have covered more miles per failure than Takata air bags. For the jet engines I do not hear anyone saying, "Well it does not occur frequently enough to justify frequent inspections and replacements, additional regulation, etc". By the way, these are not additional regulations--the safety regs for both already exist. (For a regulation free area, I recommend Somalia.) The frequency of explosions with Takata air bags is related to the history of heat cycles experienced by your vehicle's interior. It gets hot here in N.C. As a GM stock holder I am still unwilling to bet my face or life on whether my truck's airbag has turned into a grenade. If you recall Takata's own position, it concluded their airbags only needed to be replaced if they were "southern" cars.
The bag in my sprinter was finally replaced after a 2 year wait. It never really concerned me if it was going to blow up or not. I was thinking the same thing this morning about the GE engine fans. If you remember this has happened before. They found stress micro fractures in many of the engines that were inspected after the fact. After some time it faded away in the news. Whenever I fly I try to sit fwd of the wings. Not because Im worried about the engine coming apart and getting sucked out the window though
I have two 2005 Dodge Magnums. Chrysler has actually been quite aggressive in attempting to get me to replace the airbags. So far both airbags have been replaced in one of my Magnums, and the driver's side in the other. I have received at least three letters on the car that hasn't had both bags replaced. I drive that car rarely, and have just not gotten around to having the replacement done.
Weird, I have the same recall on my Mustang's airbag. Of course the dealer doesn't have it in stock...
yeah, I took a huge hit when i traded in my 2013 Mustang because the airbag recall hadn't been performed. there were no airbags available and there was a waiting list and my car was at least 2 years out on the list.
I know you're right...it was kinda funny as I was reading your OP,I was watching a "Bonanza" rerun and every commercial in between was pelvic mesh,air bags,mesothelioma,etc.....class action lawsuit advertisements. I would have to say from the statistics that I have read that these airbags were created as well as any invention at the time,but nothing(on a car especially)lasts forever. Personally,I feel about as "safe" as anybody behind any wheel in today's traffic and probably get a little tired of all the too little, too late parenting of ambulance chasers. I guess after reading some of your earlier posts I was looking for your opinion on this particular subject because some of these lawsuits seem very unethical at best and as a whole do not make sense to me. When you look at fatalities on a worldwide airbag claim the numbers are extremely minimal and just reusing the term "shrapnel"(as defined by Webster) seems very deceptive.
Here are some rather graphic pictures of what Takata airbags have done: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5444653/Shocking-photos-faulty-airbag-victims.html
Just like most NTSB safety recalls of this nature. The vehicle owners should their Takata airbags timely replaced at no expense to the owners.
I just don't get it. If there are certain designs that are actually coming apart as described....then which ones? There is no way that every takata air bag is a land mine. I have seen the latest GM list and then I read about this one.... https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2...-million-takatas-u-s-settlement/#.WtlGW9EpChA This has the potential to get as big as they want us to believe,but the numbers don't support it. I know if your car is on the list,you better get it changed. I have seen a lot of wrecks and have never even heard of any of this until fairly recently,so I would have to say I am skeptical as to 100% quality control of any auto part. I have also rode with people whose dash looks like a storage shelf and wondered what would happen if their dash bag ever blew.....I guess I would like to see more evidence of actual deployed bags and see if there were metal parts missing....I have never seen such a thing,but I am not saying it does not happen.
Define “timely”, and how do you handle the logistics of millions of defective air bags and a BK company? “Timely” won’t work if each brand automaker that used faulty Takata bags designed, engineered, tested, manufactured, and distributed their own air bags. Could take years. Takata is broke and BK. Now what? Prop them up?
Since I work at a gm dealer I'm not going to touch this with a 10 foot pole. I will say that Infiniti sent a rollback truck to pick up my mom's FX45 and take it to the nearest dealership 200 miles away to get the recall done and brought it back free of charge, obviously. Without us even asking they called her and set it all up to pick it up and drop it off at my work during business hours.
I cannot define timely, but I know it when I see it. In the case of GM, when I do not see it. You must not have read the article, supra. Instead of replacing the airbags on GM trucks and SUVs like other brands, GM is trying the same unsuccessful tactic initially tried by Takata--avoidance by filing waiver petitions with the NTSB for the last 3 years: "It has been nearly 10 years since automakers began recalling vehicles for exploding Takata airbags and four years since regulators began to investigate the defect. And it has been more than two years since NHTSA took over its management. Even so, this recall is not close to being over."... "Most of the automakers that CR contacted said their dealers have enough replacement parts available to handle the vehicles that have been recalled so far. “The real problem now is getting consumers to bring their cars in for repairs,” says General Motors spokesman Tom Wilkinson.
I was looking for a complete list of vehicles,but it is possible that this list will change http://www.nydailynews.com/autos/news/takata-airbag-recall-list-cars-article-1.2602999
