The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Two-thirds of all vehicles examined at yesterday’s Honda/Acura free airbag recall had “potentially faulty” inflators replaced to protect drivers from serious injury or death.

Rick Lowe, a director and operations manager at Nassau Motor Company (NMC), the brands’ Bahamian dealer, said 198 of the 298 vehicles inspected - some 66.4 percent - received new airbag inflators as a precaution to safeguard Bahamian consumers from defects that have claimed 23 lives worldwide.

Revealing that NMC met its goal of inspecting 300 cars daily on the initiative’s launch, Mr Lowe made an urgent plea for all owners of Honda and Acura-manufactured vehicles dated between 2001 and 2016 to visit the examination location at the former City Markets location on the Wulff and Village Road junction.

With the free replacements lasting until this Saturday, he admonished those who believe they simply do not have sufficient time to come in for the inspection to do so given that the defect has effectively turned airbags into “shrapnel”.

“It’s the device that makes the airbag come out,” Mr Lowe said of the problem. “If it’s a faulty one it turns into shrapnel. People have been killed or injured very badly. Our goal is 300 cars a day, so we were pretty close.

“There are 16 technicians in from the US, as well as are own. I think it’s a little slow. It could be a faster pace. People say they don’t have the time, but they’re not taking into consideration that they could have their life at stake. That’s how serious it is.

“They can go to the doctor if they’re not feeling well, but do not take time out of work to deal with a matter that could result in death or very serious injury.”

Mr Lowe said Takata, manufacturer of the potentially faulty airbag inflators installed in Honda and Acura models, had discovered that the chemical that triggered their expansion had been exposed to moisture.

This had ground down the pellets inside the inflators into powder, making it “so powerful that it ruptures the inflator and turns it into shrapnel”. Mr Lowe added that the worldwide airbag inflator recall and replacement was impacting all Honda and Acura makes, including both left and right-hand drives and US and Japanese-produced autos.

Some 19 different manufacturers have been affected to-date, with the replacement effort starting in 2009. “Twenty-three people have died worldwide, and a couple hundred have been injured,” Mr Lowe told Tribune Business.

“It’s serious stuff. This could be a matter of life or death. There have been some very serious injuries. With the cars checked today, two-thirds of them needed inflators as the existing ones were felt to be faulty. It’s scary.”