Takata not part of recall

MOSES LAKE — Takata Industries in Moses Lake did not create defective airbag inflators involved in a recall expansion by Honda.

Honda announced an expanded recall of certain 2001 and 2002 model-year vehicles to replace the driver’s airbag inflator in February, an additional 378,758 vehicles in the United States. The driver’s airbag inflators in the ?vehicles may deploy with too much pressure, which can cause the inflator casing to rupture, resulting in injury or fatality.

“The inflators were not made in Moses Lake. They were made in another facility,” said Alby Berman, Takata vice president of marketing and public relations. “We want to make sure their customers are safe. We are looking at problems and how they arose, as well as encouraging people notified by Honda to bring their cars in.”

The defective parts were included in 2001-2002 Honda Accords and Civics. The original recall occurred November 2008 and affected 3,940 United Sates Hondas.

Honda expanded the recall to 443,000 additional United States Hondas in July 2009. A total of 826,242 cars are involved in the expanded recall.

“Customer notifications will go out this month and they will be instructed to take their cars to a Honda dealership for a free repair,” said Jon Fitzsimmons, Honda spokesperson. “The vehicles affected by the recall are nine years old. We’re doing our best to reach out to people with these older vehicles by sending out multiple letters and making follow-up phone calls.”

Honda is aware of 12 incidents related to the recall. Certain 2001 and 2002 Accord, Civic Odyssey, CR-V and selected 2002 Acura TL vehicles, were added to the recent recall expansion.

“This isn’t the largest recall Honda has ever had,” Fitzsimmons said. “This is about our eighth or tenth largest. It is fairly common for companies to have recalls every now and then.”

The problem is said to result from a particular piece of machinery used to create the inflators, which is no longer in use.

“The manufacturing process used to press the gas-generating device, used to create the inflators, hasn’t been used in a long time,” Berman said. “We didn’t know there was a problem at the time, but the problem was totally fixed a long time ago.”

Owners are able to determine if their vehicle requires repair by going online or calling.

Honda owners can visit owners.honda.com/recalls or call 1-800-999-1009.

Acura owners can go to owners.acura.com./recalls or call 1-800-382-2238.