Tag: Takata

The Air Bag Body Count Upticks – And Will Again

Guest Post by Eric Peters

Sixteen actual Americans have been killed by Takata air bags so far. The latest victim in Buckeye, AZ. As opposed to the hypothetical Americans not actually killed by VW’s “cheating” on Uncle’s emissions certification tests.

More actuals are going to die, too – from the air bags. It’s inevitable; the odds are heavily stacked.

There are hundreds of thousands of cars in circulation with air bags Uncle knows are defective; knows have killed and so – great leap of logic – are probably going to kill again.

Yet Uncle does not hurl a fatwa granting permission for the people who were forced by Uncle to buy these air bags to even temporarily disable them until they can be replaced with new air bags that may also kill them, but which at least aren’t known to be defective.

Chew on it for a moment.

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The Takata Airbag Recall Fiasco

Guest Post by Eric Peters

A reader asked me about dealing with the known-to-be-dangerous – the defective – air bag in her vehicle. Since there are more than 40 million vehicles “affected,” her questions – and my answer – may be of general interest:

Pris asks: There’s an airbag recall for my 2005 Corolla. A truck I bought in the late ’90s was easy to “fix” – open the fuse panel; AIRBAG was fuse #18; pull it out; done. When I bought the Corolla the fuse box wasn’t obvious, so disabling the airbags was forgotten until Toyota started sending notices about the recall.  Last week I found both fuse boxes, but AIRBAG isn’t one of the labels; ABS is as close as it gets, but those are for the brake system, yes? Is there a fuse for the airbags? If it is relatively quick I prefer to remove the things completely, or at least the inflater part. Whatever, apparently these airbags are dangerous well beyond the usual damage they cause to your face and neck; I need to disable them one way or another, and I don’t think Toyota will do that for me.  ?

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The Disconnect

Guest Post by Eric Peters

If the government is so very concerned about Our Safety, why is it forcing millions of people to drive around in cars with double-dangerous Takata airbags in them?

But there is a recall!

Yes, absolutely.

Which will take years to run its course due to the enormous number of cars involved. Dealers – who are handling the work as part of the recall process – are overwhelmed. And there aren’t enough replacement, somewhat less-dangerous air bags available to replace the double-dangerous “defective” ones.

So owners of the Takata-equipped bags wait.

And, drive.

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When “If It Saves One Life” Doesn’t Seem to Matter…

Guest Post by Eric Peters

There are millions of cars out there with ticking time bombs in their dashboards … and steering wheels. Air bags with defective components produced by Takata, a Japanese company that supplied the components to 14 different automakers, who unknowingly installed them in their cars.Takata 1

Some of these defective bags have spewed bits of metal – shrapnel – into people’s faces, killing at least ten and causing serious injury to 100.

Understandably, people who own cars with Takata air bags are nervous about going anywhere near their cars – let alone getting behind the wheel.

Many more could be injured – and possibly, killed – because there are so many cars in circulation that have the defective bags. Models from Honda (and its luxury line, Acura), Nissan (and its luxury line, Infiniti) as well as vehicles made by Toyota/Lexus, Subaru and Nissan.

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