CAR CLINIC | Everything you need to know about the Takata airbag recall

Recalls in the motor industry are detested by manufacturers, dealers and customers. But a motor vehicle is a complex mechanism, built by fallible human beings. So, ever since the early 1970s, we have witnessed automotive recalls, large and small, affecting virtually every manufacturer across the board. One of the biggest recalls to date is the still-running Takata airbag saga.

Takata was a respected manufacturer of seat belts, child-restraint systems, steering wheels and other plastic parts. It was founded in Japan in 1933 and, by 2014, had production facilities on four continents. By then it was a major player in the burgeoning airbag market. But warning lights were flashing for the Takata Corporation. It had already faced, and survived, a crisis which erupted in 1995 around defective seat-belt buckles.

By 2014 reports surfaced of Takata airbags inflating with such force in the event of an accident that the metal canister containing the inflator chemicals would be blown apart, spraying shrapnel at the occupants of the car, like a mini hand grenade. Several automakers initiated recalls of vehicles to replace potentially flawed Takata airbags. These have since mushroomed to more than 41 million vehicles from 19 automakers worldwide. In June 2017 Takata, reeling under claims for compensation, filed for bankruptcy.

What went wrong with the Takata airbags? Briefly, to inflate an airbag rapidly in the event of a significant impact, you need a chemical reaction which, when triggered by the heat generated by a pulse of electrical current in the “igniter” inside the airbag assembly, would produce an adequate amount of non-toxic gas in a fast, but controlled reaction. 

The chemical compounds used as propellants in the first airbags were stable enough not to cause any problems. But in the late 1990s Takata decided, for reasons still shrouded in controversy, to switch to ammonium nitrate, a less stable compound. Specifically, a combination of temperature fluctuations and moisture can make ammonium nitrate degrade over time to an unstable form.

Coupled with this was that deficient quality control at Takata's factory in Mexico led to substandard inflator canisters being used, which allowed humid air to enter the inflator. When an airbag with unstable compounds deploys in a crash, the chemicals react more rapidly than intended and over-pressurise the inflator's metal canister, causing fragmentation. In other words, an explosion instead of a controlled reaction occurs, which blows the metal canister apart, all the more readily if the canister wasn't as strong as it should have been to begin with.

It's unclear how many cars with defective airbags were sold in SA, but it is certainly not something with which the owner of a car made between 2002 and 2015 should take a chance. To check whether your car is included in the recall, get in touch with the customer support department of the manufacturer, with the car's VIN at hand.