The auto industry has faced a number of troubles this past year; troubles which have only deepened with this weekend’s recall of more than 2.1 million older vehicles from three major carmakers-Toyota, Chrysler and Honda.
The announcement comes only days after the family of Carlos Solis filed a lawsuit against Takata, the airbag manufacturer for Toyota. Solis, 35, was killed on Jan. 18 in a minor crash in Texas. The lawsuit alleges that as an air bag in his 2002 Honda Accord inflated, it sent a piece of metal into his neck. Solis was pronounced dead at the scene. His death has not officially been linked to the air bag, but officials are speculating the airbag played a role.
The vehicles are being recalled a second time to fix potentially faulty air bags that may inadvertently inflate while the car is running. Recalled vehicles include some Acura MDX, Dodge Viper, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Honda Odyssey, Pontiac Vibe, Toyota Corolla and Toyota Avalon models made from 2002 to 2004.
According to a statement by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, all of the vehicles covered in Saturday’s announcement had already been under a recall for the defective air bags, but the carmakers’ original attempts to fix the defects worked only about 85% of the time. Since the initial recall, there have been about 400 reported cases of faulty air bag deployments in the recalled vehicles. The incidents resulted in minor injuries but no known deaths. The recall highlights the problems automakers and regulators face with increasing number of complex electronic systems.
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