Material sciences, advanced safety technology, and a natural disaster all play a part in Honda’s latest recall, which affects a whopping 750,144 vehicles. Those factors all led to a manufacturing defect that could cause the airbags in Honda and Acura vehicles to deploy in a crash, even when they’re not supposed to.
Although airbags are a vital piece of safety equipment, there are certain circumstances when they should not deploy, even in an accident, such as when a small child is in the front seat. Modern vehicles depend on sensors to determine when the airbag should or shouldn’t blow, and those sensors rely on circuit boards. They are the specific parts at the heart of this Honda recall.
It says that the supplier to the company that makes its printed circuit boards was hit by a natural disaster, which affected production. As a result, the circuit board maker turned to a different company to make the base material for the part.
Unfortunately, the material was not adequately verified, and that’s an issue. Honda says that the circuit boards could be subject to additional strain, which can lead the capacitor to crack, leading to an internal short and, ultimately, the possibility of an incorrect airbag deployment.
The good news is that customers may be alerted to the presence of a problem thanks to the SRS warning light. In addition, the passenger airbag indicator could stay off when it’s supposed to be on. Those early warning signs may explain why Honda is aware of 3,834 warranty claims relating to this issue, but has so far received no reports of injuries, or deaths as a result of it.
Read: Takata Saga Continues As Toyota And GM Urge More Owners To Stop Driving Over Faulty Airbags
In all, the questionable circuit boards have gone into a total of 16 different models from the 2020 to 2022 model years (listed below). Both Honda and Acura vehicles must be fixed as part of this recall.
The automaker plans to start reaching out to owners on March 18, and they will be asked to return their vehicle to an authorized dealership. There, a technician will replace the seat weight sensor with a non-defective part that uses a printed circuit board built with the material Honda originally verified.