Volvo Recalls 260,000 Vehicles After Airbag-Related Fatality

The central concern at the heart of the recall is a faulty airbag that can cause harm or even death according to the report filed with the NHTSA. This is the same sort of issue that struck much of the automotive world when airbags built by Takata were found to be dangerous.

In this particular instance, the ZF-built airbag is succeptable to a combination of high heat and high humidity or moisture. Such an environment can cause the inflator propelent inside the airbag to degrade and form dust-like particles.

Because of this breakdown, actuation of the airbag can be more violent than intended and could even send metal shrapnel towards the occupant. Sadly, Volvo has confirmed that in at least one case, this condition led to a fatality sometime before June of 2019.

The recall affects more than a quarter-million vehicles across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The first vehicle mentioned in the report is the luxurious S80 from 2001 to 2006 and the second is the smaller S60 sedan built from 2001 to 2009.

Always commited to safety, it's great to see Volvo again stepping up to ensure that their customers are in the safest vehicle possible despite these cars being long out of production and only a single incident on record.

This is after all, the company that boldly aimed at creating a vehicle to protect its occipants better than any other and in 2018 it was found that nobody had died on UK roads in that car, the XC90.

Volvo says that all affected airbags are eligible for complete replacement at no cost to the customer. The new airbags use a different and more stable type of propellen that isn't succeptable to the same conditions that can cause the originals to fail.