Driver injury leads to review of unrecalled Takata inflators
DETROIT — U.S. auto safety regulators said this week that they are monitoring data from a group of mostly unrecalled Takata air bag inflators after one of them exploded in a BMW and hurled metal fragments that seriously injured a driver in Chicago.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been investigating the batch of about 30 million inflators since 2021 to see if they exhibit the same traits that forced Takata to recall 67 million of the devices since 2001.
On Saturday, the agency posted documents showing that BMW is recalling 486 SUVs after the Chicago driver was hurt. A complaint filed with the agency shows that on Oct. 23, the inflator on a 2014 X3 exploded, shooting a large gold-colored metal disc that a surgeon had to remove from the driver’s lung.
Takata used volatile ammonium nitrate to create a small explosion to inflate air bags in a crash. But the chemical propellant can deteriorate over time when exposed to high temperatures and humidity. It can explode with too much force, blowing apart a metal canister and spewing shrapnel.
At least 26 people have been killed in the U.S. by Takata inflators since May 2009, and at least 30 have died worldwide. In addition, about 400 people have been injured. The exploding air bags sent Takata of Japan into bankruptcy.
Separate from the recalled Takata inflators are about 30 million that contain a moisture-absorbing chemical called a desiccant that is meant to keep the ammonium nitrate dry and stable.
The potential for a dangerous malfunction led to the largest series of auto recalls in U.S. history. About 100 million inflators were recalled worldwide.
In a statement, BMW blamed the ruptured inflator on a welding defect in manufacturing and said it is limited to a small lot of inflators.
The BMW recall, however, is the third from the group of inflators with a desiccant, raising questions about their safety.
General Motors recalled nearly 900 vehicles in July with inflators that have the desiccant and also blamed the problem on a manufacturing defect at Takata. In 2020, Volkswagen recalled 370,000 Passat and Beetle cars from 2012 through at least 2016 due to a propellant problem.
In a statement Monday, the NHTSA said the GM and BMW recalls came from the same group of inflators “and appear to stem from manufacturing issues rather than propellant degradation.”
The VW inflators had a different propellant mixture than was used in the GM and BMW vehicles, it said.
In a document that opened the 2021 investigation, NHTSA said it understood that desiccants will become saturated at some point and will not capture any more moisture. This means the deterioration process that happens in inflators without the desiccant may also happen in inflators with the desiccant, the document said.