Photo: Florin Profir
The Takata scandal has long been a game of “he said, she said.” Now, though, the Japanese carmaker has confirmed that it was aware of the defective airbag design since as early as 2009. And guess what? Honda failed to inform Stateside regulators about it.
Pardon me, Honda, but are you out of your goddamn bleeding mind? What’s done it’s done, though. Honda has discovered the defective design following a review of Takata’s documents and presentations.
As it happens, Honda had asked Takata in a hush-hush manner to change the design of said airbags after it found out about a death and four injuries linked to Honda vehicles equipped with Takata inflators. The thing is, neither Honda nor Takata wanted to acknowledge that the design flaw was larger in nature, which is why neither Honda nor Takata informed regulators about the faulty inflators.
From my point of view, that’s as shallow as a blonde teenage girl on a reality show. From a legal point of view, Honda could soon take the grunt of liability suits on top of the existing class action, state, and federal lawsuits. Make no mistake about it, nobody in their right mind will buy an excuse in the vein of “It’s one hundred percent the supplier’s problem, not Honda's.”
Honda, like any car-making company with sales operations in the United States of America, is responsible for every nut and bolt that goes into their cars. Honda is obliged to report a problem with any of those parts, be they developed in-house or acquired from a supplier such as Takata. But Honda failed to comply for reasons that I can’t quite comprehend. Fingers crossed regulators will bring those reasons to light in the near future.
Honda has recalled approximately 8.5 million vehicles over the defective airbags manufactured by Takata.
As it happens, Honda had asked Takata in a hush-hush manner to change the design of said airbags after it found out about a death and four injuries linked to Honda vehicles equipped with Takata inflators. The thing is, neither Honda nor Takata wanted to acknowledge that the design flaw was larger in nature, which is why neither Honda nor Takata informed regulators about the faulty inflators.
From my point of view, that’s as shallow as a blonde teenage girl on a reality show. From a legal point of view, Honda could soon take the grunt of liability suits on top of the existing class action, state, and federal lawsuits. Make no mistake about it, nobody in their right mind will buy an excuse in the vein of “It’s one hundred percent the supplier’s problem, not Honda's.”
Honda, like any car-making company with sales operations in the United States of America, is responsible for every nut and bolt that goes into their cars. Honda is obliged to report a problem with any of those parts, be they developed in-house or acquired from a supplier such as Takata. But Honda failed to comply for reasons that I can’t quite comprehend. Fingers crossed regulators will bring those reasons to light in the near future.
Honda has recalled approximately 8.5 million vehicles over the defective airbags manufactured by Takata.
Google News