cars news 10: Report: Honda Asked Takata to Fix Inflators in 2009, Didn’t Tell Regulators

Honda and Takata quietly fixed an issue with the supplier’s airbag inflators without notifying the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, according to a new report. By law, there must be transparency when an automaker makes a change that affects or prevents a potential safety risk.

The change was made after identifying a flaw linked to airbag inflator ruptures. Honda asked Takata to make a “fail-safe” airbag inflator in August 2009 after the issue was linked to at least four injuries and one death in the automaker’s vehicles.

Although automakers are required to notify the NHTSA about safety changes, Honda representative Chris Martin told Reuters that the redesign was exempt because the safety risk was due to manufacturing errors and not a design error. Still, the new information could hurt Honda and Takata in more than 100 pending federal and dozens of state law suits, according to legal experts. The new information shows that the automaker knew about an airbag inflator issue before recalling millions of vehicles in 2014.

Honda’s request was to “protect against the possibility of future manufacturing errors — it was not an acknowledgement of a larger design flaw in the inflators,” Martin claims. He went on to say that the automaker is using new airbag inflators and that the recalls were expanded due to other defects as they became known.

The requested update included additional vents in the inflator to redirect pressure build-up away from the driver, according to Takata’s internal documents. Takata wouldn’t specify to Reuters which automaker requested the design change. The supplier only said it “tested and deployed” several revisions of the inflator “at the request of an automotive customer.”

Honda told Automotive News in and email that the company “categorically rejects the assertion that a redesigned airbag inflator component is evidence that the prior inflator design contained a safety defect.

“It was Honda’s understanding at the time that all inflator ruptures were due to Takata manufacturing errors associated with a previous inflator design,” Honda said. “Thus, Honda’s request to Takata to incorporate a change into a new airbag inflator design, was prudent on our part. Importantly, we are aware of no customers experiencing rupture events with the new inflator design.”

The email went on to say, “It is not NHTSA’s expectation, nor the industry practice, that automakers will automatically report every new inflator design to NHTSA.”

To date, Honda has recalled 8.5 million vehicles related to the issue that has been linked to nine deaths and more than 90 injuries in Honda vehicles in the U.S. The airbag inflator recall affects millions of vehicles in the U.S. from 14 different automakers.

Source: Reuters, Automotive News (Subscription required)