A defect in nearly a million cars on Florida roads can kill you. Here’s what to do now
UPDATE: Dealers that do car repairs were deemed essential businesses and allowed to operate in South Florida during the coronavirus pandemic. This means they will continue to schedule and perform airbag replacements for the recalled vehicles, according to a spokeswoman for SafeAirbags.com in May. Some dealers may be offering “no touch” concierge service and pick up and return your car. If you received a recall notice for defective Takata airbags and still have not acted on it, contact your dealer to see what services they provide during the COVID-19 crisis.
That defective-airbag warning you heeded by dutifully booking an appointment with your car dealer a year ago to replace the potentially deadly flaw?
You’ve got to do it again.
Now.
As in check your mailbox or email for the warning letter you probably already received if you are one of the more than 900,000 in Florida — or 17 million nationwide — who have a car with a Takata airbag.
Nearly a million affected airbags in Florida
“In Florida, more than 900,000 recalled Takata airbags remain on the road in vehicles representing 19 vehicle manufacturers,” according to SafeAirbags.com, an organization that notifies owners about urgent airbag safety recalls.
The group’s website at SafeAirbags.com also lets you plug in your vehicle’s identifying number — VIN number — to see if you are driving one of the affected cars.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also has a webpage at www.nhtsa.gov/recalls to let you tap in your VIN to see if your car has any recall notices.
One-third — or 300,000 — of those vehicles with the potentially defective airbags are on Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach County roadways, according to SafeAirbags.com.
“To date, 69% of the recalled airbag inflators on Miami-area roads have been fixed,” a SafeAirbags spokeswoman said on May 14.
The agency launched its recall awareness campaign late last summer — actor Morgan Freeman is one of the pitchmen — but ramped up word-of-mouth and social media efforts to get the urgent point across during the holidays when roads were clogged with cars.
During the coronavirus pandemic, the agency renewed its focus in May to let people know that many dealers had begun offering “no touch” concierge service to make the repairs as many people are concerned about venturing to places of business during the COVID-19 crisis.
Car manufacturers in the recall
Affected vehicles include those made by BMW, Chrysler, Ferrari, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Infiniti, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lexus, Mazda, McLaren, Mercedes-Benz, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Scion, Subaru, Tesla, Toyota, and Volkswagen.
This warning applies even if you replaced the airbag for the same reason in 2017 and 2018, because, as the warning letters state, these bags were replaced with “like for like” airbags that could deteriorate over time and lead to the same hazard.
The concern over airbags
According to the recall letters, a defective part inside the airbag can explode when the airbag deploys in a crash, potentially shooting sharp metal fragments at the driver and passengers.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that 16 people nationwide have been killed over the past two years — “and hundreds more are alleged to have been injured by this defect.”
What you should do now
▪ Check your VIN on one of the two websites — SafeAirbags or the NHTSA — to see if this applies to your car if you didn’t already receive a warning letter or email. You can find your 17-character VIN on the lower left of your car’s windshield or on your car’s registration slip and it may be on your insurance card, too.
▪ Download the free Airbag Recall app for your smartphone, which lets you take a photo of your car’s license plate to see if you are one of those under a recall.
▪ Immediately schedule an appointment, if needed, for a recall repair with the car’s dealer. There should be no charge for this repair.
“Dealerships in Florida generally have replacement parts available,” a rep from SafeAirbags said. So call and get that appointment booked.
Wait time for repairs
Expect to wait about an hour or two or maybe a bit more for the repair work to be completed, a representative at Kendall Toyota said in the winter to a customer who booked an appointment.
Some dealerships offer shuttle service to take you home and back to the shop when your car is ready, depending on how far you live from the dealer. Check with your local dealer if a ride is available or what their policy is during the coronavirus pandemic.
Wait time depends on how busy the dealership’s repair department is, and the make and model of your car.
“More than 17 million airbags recalled have not been repaired,” Patrick Juneau of SafeAirbags.com said in a statement.
Juneau was appointed by a federal court in Florida to administer an outreach program aimed at repairing these defective airbags.
“Unfortunately, many consumers are not taking immediate action, either because they have been ignoring safety recall notices, or do not understand the severity of the situation,” he said.
This story was originally published December 19, 2019 at 2:00 PM.
