Last week, Ford announced it was recalling 2.6 MN cars as the result of faulty airbags from Takata. ---- Ford is recalling about 2.6 million cars, SUVs, and trucks in the U.S. and its territories to replace driver-side Takata airbags. The problem: The driver-side front airbag inflators contain a calcium sulfate desiccant that may degrade after long-term exposure to high humidity and temperature cycling. This could cause an inflator to rupture during airbag deployment, leading to injury and possible death. The fix: Dealers will replace the driver-side front airbag inflator or airbag module. ---- Who pays for the recall? I would assume that it is Ford, but why should they have to bear the expense of recalling 2.6MN cars because the supplier was careless? It seems that there should be an agreement that if a part fails, then the supplier must share in the expense of the recall and repairs. It should also leave the door with a free oil change and a car wash, but that never happens. What kind of arrangement exists between suppliers and manufacturers with respect to the warranty of parts? Is Takata the only manufacturer of airbags? They were in the headlines ten years ago when so many airbags were exploding without warning, and sending metal parts into the drivers. It seems that they are the only ones in the news with regards to airbags. Is the reason that Ford and others contract to buy airbags from them is to put some distance between themselves and a huge injury award if a critical part fails? They can blame it on the supplier and not take responsibility?
Takata probably paid something before going bankrupt. https://money.cnn.com/2017/06/25/news/companies/takata-bankruptcy/index.html The auto manufacturers aren't completely innocent in this. Ford might be recalling the driver-side airbag now even though they know the passenger-side airbag has similar problems. And the same vehicles might be recalled for that later.
Which car models, and from what manufacturing year, are involved in this recall? I thought that by now all car makers had recalled all their old cars to replace the older Takata airbags.
Yes, but that is in most cases up for discussion/negotiation between the car maker and the supplier. The terms and conditions are most likely not be shared publicly. By the way: Takata went bankrupt due to their faulty airbags and all recall costs. The remainder of Takata was then bought by another company.
Yeah, I am sure it is confidential. I just wonder what kind of arrangements exist. I forgot about Takata going bankrupt. It's amazing that they are still in the news, so many years after going bust. I wonder how many of their airbags are in still riding around in existing cars?
The article explains that it is about cars manufactured in the years 2006 ~ 2012. Thus these are old cars which were not yet included in previous recalls.
A lot of those dangerous airbags are still on the road: many owners did not respond to the recalls and did not get their airbags replaced. Many cars easily reach an age of 10 ~ 20 years before getting scrapped, so these cars will remain on the road for quite a number of years as the usage of these faulty airbags continued to 2012 or beyond. Edit: by the way, the Takata issue was such a huge issue that the car makers were not able to recall all cars at once. Takata's competitors were not large enough to product sufficient airbags to replace the faulty airbags. That is why the recalls were spread out over multiple years. And I've heard that car makers provided financial support to airbag makers to build additional factories to produce all these replacement airbags. Takata had a majority of market share in this business as their product was so much better and cheaper than their competitors. Until the design flaw (the chemical used) and danger of these airbags became clear.....