Honda is adding California to its regional recall, issued due to the defective Takata airbags that cause a potential explosion on collision.
Honda, the renowned car-making company, is adding California to its regional recall list after an accident was reported to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration last month. The car-maker is already addressing the potentially exploding airbag issue in several models. But the regional recall, which involved hot and humid southern states of the U.S., is now expanding to the country's most populous state and a sacred market for automakers.
The expansion of the recall follows a major accident of a woman involving a 2005 model Honda Accord in California that was reported to the car-maker on June 25. The accident, according to the complaint filed with the NHTSA, caused the airbag to burst out "hot metal and plastic shrapnel" after a collision at low speed. As a result, the woman on the driver's seat suffered severe burns and bruises on her arms and legs.
"While this case does not match the areas that NHTSA has determined, Honda is adding California into the areas in which it is conducting a regional recall in order to investigate the cause quickly," Auto News quoted a Honda spokeswoman as saying.
NHTSA suggested the car-makers to recall vehicles in Puerto Rico, Florida, Hawaii and the Virgin Islands. Honda is additionally recalling vehicles in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas, the report adds.
The airbag problem is slowly becoming the second to GM's highlighted ignition switch recall. The defective airbags are manufactured by Takata and has been a subject of recall for millions of vehicles from different car-makers including Toyota, Nissan and others. Honda, which is the biggest Takata customer, has recalled a total of 6 million vehicles, due to the defective air bags, in nine separate recalls since 2008. The defect caused death of two people in 2009, an earlier Bloomberg report stated.
It is unclear as to how many vehicles will be added in the recall from California, but the existing recall affects Accord model from 2001-2007, Civic from 2001-2005 and CR-V SUVs from 2002-2006.
