WASHINGTON—The National Road Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) requested the recall of 67 million air bag inflators because it believes there is a safety flaw, but auto supplier ARC Automotive Inc has rejected the US regulator’s request, according to documents released Friday.
THE car safety the agency said the inflators pose an unreasonable risk of death or injury.
Even as breakages increase, “ARC has not made a defect determination that would require a recall of this population,” NHTSA said in its inquiry letter to the Tennessee-based company. “Air Bag inflators that project metal fragments into the vehicle occupants, rather than properly inflating the attached airbag, create an unreasonable risk of death and injury.”
The ARC airbag inflators have deployed General MotorsChrysler-mother Stellantis, BMW, Hyundai The engine, duck Corp and other vehicles. GM on Friday it agreed to recall nearly 1 million vehicles with ARC airbag inflators after a failure in March left a driver with facial injuries.
ARC rejected NHTSA’s tentative conclusion that a flaw exists, saying it is based on seven field failures in the United States. NHTSA “then asks ARC to prove a negative — that the 67 million inflators in this population are not defective” that were manufactured over 18 years. The company said it will continue to work with NHTSA and automakers to evaluate the breakouts.
NHTSA in 2016 updated an investigation into more than 8 million airbag inflators made by ARC after a driver was killed in Canada in a Hyundai vehicle and investigated for more than seven years.
NHTSA initially opened an investigation in July 2015 following two reported injuries.
NHTSA reported through January 2018, 67 million driver and passenger front airbag inflators. Delphi, acquired by Autoliv, produced approximately 11 million inflators under a licensing agreement with ARC, which produced the rest of the inflators.
ARC noted that there have been several test programs of inflators collected from wrecked or other vehicles, but not a single failure has occurred during these tests.
The 67 million inflators were produced for the US market on multiple production lines at several plants and used by 12 vehicle manufacturers in dozens of models. “None of these manufacturers have concluded that there is a systemic defect in this large population,” ARC said.
NHTSA said ARC in January 2018 completed installing devices on inflator production lines used to detect excessive welding slag or other debris. NHTSA said it was unaware of any problems in ARC inflators manufactured since. ARC said welding slag has not been confirmed as the root cause of the breakages.
NHTSA has investigated airbag inflator failures for over 15 years.
In the last decade, more than 67 million Takata the airbag inflators have been remembered in the United States and more than 100 million worldwide, the largest automotive safety recall in history.
More than 30 deaths worldwide – including 24 deaths in the United States – and hundreds injured in vehicles of various automakers since 2009 are linked to Takata airbag inflators that can explode, releasing metal shrapnel inside cars And truck. The last death was in July 2022 in a Chrysler 300 from 2010one of three Stellantis deaths in a seven-month period.
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