With the recent “Do Not Drive” warning issued by Honda for thousands of vehicles equipped with extremely dangerous and unrepaired Takata Alpha air bag inflators, AAA is urging all drivers to immediately check the recall status of every vehicle they drive.
In February, Honda issued a warning for more than 8,200 Honda and Acura vehicles manufactured between 2001 and 2003 that are still on the road with defective Takata airbag inflators that have a 50 percent failure rate. If the inflators rupture, metal fragments can be propelled toward the driver’s face, causing devastating injuries or death.
Although Honda has replaced or accounted for nearly 99 percent of the recalled inflators, the remaining 8,200 vehicles subject to the warning remain unrepaired and unaccounted for. Models with the defective air bags include:
- 2001-2002 Honda Accord
- 2001-2002 Honda Civic
- 2002 Honda CR-V
- 2002 Honda Odyssey
- 2003 Honda Pilot
- 2002-2003 Acura 3.2 TL
- 2003 Acura 3.2CL
Honda’s warning comes on the heels of a similar directive from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in November 2022 involving roughly 276,000 model year 2005 to 2010 Dodge Magnums, Chargers and Challengers and Chrysler 300s. That warning came after two people died in separate crashes involving 2010 Dodge chargers equipped with Takata airbags.
Ignoring Takata air bag recall notices can have fatal consequences. Last June, a 2006 Ford Ranger owner in Florida was killed in a minor crash when an unrepaired Takata air bag inflator exploded. That vehicle was subject to a “Do Not Drive” warning at the time of the crash and Ford Motor Company said that more than 100 recall notices were mailed to the owner and a representative visited the owner in person.
As of January 2021, about 67 million inflators were under recall for risk of explosion. Nineteen vehicle manufacturers were affected. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, about 50 million inflators have been repaired or accounted for. Twenty-four people have been killed and more than 400 injured from defective inflators.
Every Takata air bag under recall will be replaced for free. Although millions of recall notices have been sent to owners by mail, millions of vehicles still need to be fixed. Checking to see if a vehicle is affected by a recall is easy. Visit NHTSA.gov/recalls and enter a vehicle identification number to check the status of all recalls for a specific model. With NHTSA’s free SaferCar app, you can get recall information sent to your phone. Simply download SaferCar, for Android and iOS, add your vehicle and equipment, and you’ll receive an alert if a safety recall is issued.
Along with Takata air bag recalls, AAA is urging the owners of the following vehicles to make sure their vehicles are repaired right away:
- Tesla Model S, Model X, Model 3 and Model Y vehicles equipped with “Full Self Driving” Beta software. The automaker is recalling 363,000 vehicles due to safety concerns about the FSD Beta system allowing vehicles to act unsafe around intersections, such as driving straight through an intersection with a turn-only lane, entering a stop sign-controlled intersection without coming to a complete stop, or proceeding into an intersection during a steady yellow traffic signal without due caution. NHTSA also said the system may respond insufficiently to changes in posted speed limits or not adequately account for the driver’s adjustment of the vehicles speed to exceed posted speed limits.
- Subaru Ascent vehicles from Model Year 2019-2022. The recall affects 271,694 vehicles that are at increased risk of fire due to a production defect with the wiring of a heating system component. Two fires have been reported so far, but there are no reported injuries or crashes.
- Dodge Ram 1500, 2500 and 3500 pickup trucks from model years 2019-2022. A total of 1.2 million trucks may be equipped with tailgates that fail to latch properly due to misaligned tailgate strikers. This could cause tailgates to open while driving.