Takata Admits To Faulty Airbags As Recall Becomes The Biggest In History

Australia has seen three wide-reaching airbag recalls in the past week, and now the manufacturer has finally admitted that its product is faulty.

Japanese parts supplier Takata has agreed to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) request in the US to effectively double the number of vehicles recalled worldwide over the issue.

This will see a total of nearly 34 million cars recalled across the globe, with 17 million recalled for driver’s airbags and 16 million for passenger airbags.

In Australia alone, nearly 300,000 Nissans and Toyotas were recalled last week, and 130,000 Hondas were recalled this week.

And that’s on top of previous Takata airbag recalls in Australia stretching back beyond 12 months.

The issue, as it has always been, is the airbag inflator assemblies, which can fracture as the airbag deploys causing potentially lethal fragments to strike the vehicle’s occupants.

NHTSA