Further recall of air bag inflators is ruled out

Automakers won’t have to recall roughly 56 million more air bag inflators made by the now-defunct Takata Corp., the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Thursday, citing industry test data that the agency said showed that the parts won’t pose a danger.

The agency and an industry group will instead monitor the safety of those Takata air bag inflators, which contain a moistureabsorbing desiccant, the NHTSA said Thursday. Many of the parts at issue were replacements for recalled Takata gear that could explode in a crash and spray drivers with metal shards, a defect linked to more than a dozen deaths and hundreds of injuries globally.

The decision means that more than a dozen auto manufacturers that used the components in recall repairs can avoid a massive expansion of what was already the largest and most complex auto safety recall in history, involving roughly 100 million flawed parts worldwide.

A 2015 consent order the NHTSA signed with Takata required it and other auto companies to provide the agency by the end of 2019 with evidence on the long-term safety of the parts containing a moisture-absorbing chemical and whether the data indicated that the NHTSA should order another recall of those parts.

After a review of testing data, the NHTSA said Volkswagen AG will recall roughly 370,000 vehicles containing the inflators at issue starting in December because those could pose a greater risk in the future, the agency said Thursday.

“While none of the desiccated inflators pose an imminent risk to safety, the inflators in the recalled vehicles pose a higher risk than others, and could pose such a risk starting as soon as four years from now,” the agency said.

The rest of the more than 50 million components “do not pose risk to safety in the coming years, but NHTSA will continue to monitor their performance over time to determine whether they may begin to show evidence of degradation that may eventually create a safety risk,” the agency said.

The NHTSA said it made the decision after reviewing test data submitted ahead of the 2019 deadline, including information from a Takata affiliate handling NHTSA matters and a carmaker coalition that tested the long-term durability of the parts. The group, known as the Independent Testing Coalition, found that the drying agent provided significant protection, and the coalition recommended a monitoring program for one inflator design in the riskiest climates while telling the NHTSA that it believes that the parts present no immediate safety risk.

The NHTSA said the ITC would continue to assess how the parts perform in vehicles on the road.