NHTSA urges owners of recalled Takata airbag vehicles to take immediate action

[Hum]

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Department of Transportation are taking the unusual step of issuing a followup press release urging owners of certain recalled vehicles "to act immediately" to fix their cars and trucks. The problem in question concerns the repair campaigns for rupturing Takata airbag inflators issued in June and covers a long list of models from Toyota, Lexus, Honda, Acura, Mazda, BMW, Nissan, Infiniti, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Oldsmobile and Pontiac.

While NHSTA doesn't specifically say why the recall is vital in the new release, Toyota's own explanation in its newly announced renotification campaign earlier today sheds some new light on the topic. According to the Japanese automaker, in testing, Takata found a possible link between the rupturing airbag inflators and high humidity. NHTSA is advocating that all owners pursue repairs immediately if they haven't already done so already. This is especially crucial for those drivers especially in Florida, Puerto Rico, Guam, Saipan, American Samoa, Virgin Islands and Hawaii because of the humid conditions there.

We don't need to tell you how dangerous an inadvertent airbag deployment could be ? even in a stationary vehicle ? but adding to the Takata issue is fears that the deployment could lead to shrapnel being sprayed into the cabin.
 

If you're unsure whether your vehicle is covered under this campaign, NHTSA has a new VIN lookup tool for all recalls recently that could be handy in this situation. Scroll down for the full list of potentially affected models and the agency's statement ? there are upwards of nearly five million vehicles that could be affected.

 

http://www.autoblog.com/2014/10/20/nhtsa-urgent-takata-airbag-recall-warning-issued/

 

http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/owners/SearchSafetyIssues

[DocM]

Like having a shotgun shell in your airbag. The ambulance chasers will have a field day with this one.