A defective airbag that has been linked to one death and 11 injuries in the United States over the past few years is still haunting Honda as the company today announced that it is adding 437,763 cars to its existing global safety recall over the airbag inflation problem.
The expanded recall is concentrated mainly in the United States, where nearly 378,758 vehicles are affected, but the latest announcement also covers Japan, Mexico, Taiwan and Australia.The models added to the list concern certain 2001 and 2002 Honda Accord, Civic, Odyssey, CR-V, 2002 Pilot, 2002 Acura CL and selected 2002 Acura TL vehicles.
According to the automaker, the driver's airbag inflators in these vehicles may deploy with too much pressure causing the inflator casing to rupture and send metal fragments through the airbag cushion material possibly resulting in injury or even fatality to vehicle occupants.
Honda first issued a recall on the matter on less than 4,000 model year 2001 Accord and Civic back in November 2008. After the original recall, the Japanese automaker said that two additional incidents were reported, including one fatality from a vehicle not included in that recall.
That led Honda to expand the recall in July 2009 to include approximately 440,000 model year 2001 and 2002 Accord, Civic and certain 2002 Acura TL vehicles.
