Risking lives to save a $BUCK$
#11
03-07-2019, 12:34 PM
Wow. Ok.
So, for years (perhaps decades), Takata was the leading manufacturer of airbag systems in the world. Literally every single automaker uses the company in some capacity, because they offered the most commonly used parts without any problem. Since this mess with Takata started however many years ago with the first honda airbags to fail, every automaker that has used one of their products on a vehicle has been testing that product. At first, the only known issue was that the inflators could come apart when the bags open, and that only impacted vehicles that had spent time in areas with high humidity, which led to corrosion of some parts of the takata inflators. This led to the first FCA recall, which was 3rd gen Rams (like mine) that had been registered in certain areas, all of which had the same failing component as the honda vehicles and some models from other automakers.
Just to be clear, that first recall in 2012 or so (i dont recall the exact year right now) pertained to a specific component and specific conditions, at which point FCA recalled the vehicles with those exact parts and conditions. The automakers quickly expanded that recall to include all vehicles with those inflators, regardless of where the vehicles were driven. This led to literally millions of recalls across the world (not just in the US) to fix these parts. There are other companies, but they are considerably smaller than takata, so they are unable to come close to meeting the sudden demand. At the same time, Takata wanted to make good on these issues, as technically, the recall pertains to a takata part, not a Ford or FCA or Honda part. That created a massive backlog for those components.
Then, as people started taking a good, hard look at Takata products, other problems were found and that led to more recalls, but say that a Ford engineer finds that a certain part doesnt work right in a Mustang. FCA wouldnt automatically recall that piece without their own testing, and that is true of all automakers. So each time one automaker would find a problematic part, engineers at all of the other automakers would begin their own testing. As I understand it, at this point, automakers are going through every past takata system, checking to see if anything is questionable or could lead to a problem down the road. The issue with that is time. It takes lots of time to do all of the testing and in some cases, they have to test the system on multiple vehicles and various scenarios, and when they do find a problem, they have to report it to the NHTSA and follow all of the protocol on issuing a recall, which is also surprisingly time consuming.
Now, they found out about the Ram issue years ago because other automakers had a problem, but say that your car had no reported issues, they would not have made it a priority over vehicles with parts that have been reported to fail. They cant just issue a blanket recall for every airbag system, so they have to go through all of the testing and before they actually begin the recall, they have to make sure that parts are available...and that is a whole new issue. The smaller airbag companies dont have the capacity to build tens of millions of units, but Takata does, so the company that caused this whole mess is actively involved in fixing it.
It should also be noted that last I heard, there were NO reported injuries or deaths in FCA vehicles as a result of airbag issues. My truck was in the first wave of recalls and Ive still not had the repair done. The Ram trucks with the problematic parts were the third bestselling vehicle in the country during the 2006-2008 model year, for instance, and Ive not heard of a single airbag failure during a crash. My point of saying that is that the risks are blown out of proportion based on problems with other vehicles.
So, for years (perhaps decades), Takata was the leading manufacturer of airbag systems in the world. Literally every single automaker uses the company in some capacity, because they offered the most commonly used parts without any problem. Since this mess with Takata started however many years ago with the first honda airbags to fail, every automaker that has used one of their products on a vehicle has been testing that product. At first, the only known issue was that the inflators could come apart when the bags open, and that only impacted vehicles that had spent time in areas with high humidity, which led to corrosion of some parts of the takata inflators. This led to the first FCA recall, which was 3rd gen Rams (like mine) that had been registered in certain areas, all of which had the same failing component as the honda vehicles and some models from other automakers.
Just to be clear, that first recall in 2012 or so (i dont recall the exact year right now) pertained to a specific component and specific conditions, at which point FCA recalled the vehicles with those exact parts and conditions. The automakers quickly expanded that recall to include all vehicles with those inflators, regardless of where the vehicles were driven. This led to literally millions of recalls across the world (not just in the US) to fix these parts. There are other companies, but they are considerably smaller than takata, so they are unable to come close to meeting the sudden demand. At the same time, Takata wanted to make good on these issues, as technically, the recall pertains to a takata part, not a Ford or FCA or Honda part. That created a massive backlog for those components.
Then, as people started taking a good, hard look at Takata products, other problems were found and that led to more recalls, but say that a Ford engineer finds that a certain part doesnt work right in a Mustang. FCA wouldnt automatically recall that piece without their own testing, and that is true of all automakers. So each time one automaker would find a problematic part, engineers at all of the other automakers would begin their own testing. As I understand it, at this point, automakers are going through every past takata system, checking to see if anything is questionable or could lead to a problem down the road. The issue with that is time. It takes lots of time to do all of the testing and in some cases, they have to test the system on multiple vehicles and various scenarios, and when they do find a problem, they have to report it to the NHTSA and follow all of the protocol on issuing a recall, which is also surprisingly time consuming.
Now, they found out about the Ram issue years ago because other automakers had a problem, but say that your car had no reported issues, they would not have made it a priority over vehicles with parts that have been reported to fail. They cant just issue a blanket recall for every airbag system, so they have to go through all of the testing and before they actually begin the recall, they have to make sure that parts are available...and that is a whole new issue. The smaller airbag companies dont have the capacity to build tens of millions of units, but Takata does, so the company that caused this whole mess is actively involved in fixing it.
It should also be noted that last I heard, there were NO reported injuries or deaths in FCA vehicles as a result of airbag issues. My truck was in the first wave of recalls and Ive still not had the repair done. The Ram trucks with the problematic parts were the third bestselling vehicle in the country during the 2006-2008 model year, for instance, and Ive not heard of a single airbag failure during a crash. My point of saying that is that the risks are blown out of proportion based on problems with other vehicles.
#12
03-19-2019, 11:58 PM
This is one of those things where an engineer has a 'great idea' to save a few bucks, and it gets implemented. It isn't until after it has aged nicely that the issues start to show up. Basically, it boils down to poor testing...... The products are ostensibly 'certified'..... and FCA just buys them, expecting them to behave as advertised. When they don't..... Folks take a beatin'.
#13
03-20-2019, 08:24 PM
