Jaguar Land Rover joins others in the biggest auto recall in US history

In 2016, there was a case of a vehicle owner who was killed when the airbags of her car deflated, a device that was meant to protect her. According to the New York Times, Huma Hanif died in a matter of seconds when the airbag of her Honda Civic exploded launching shrapnel at her from a few feet away. And it was one of the many cases that Honda was being held up for (100 injuries and 8 deaths so far).

It is more than a decade now since Takata allegedly knew about the problem. The recall started in the US in 2014 after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) called for the recall to be expanded to national level also issuing a fine of $14,000 per day for not cooperating with the agency’s investigation into the airbag problems. At a reported 64,000,000 vehicles, the recall is far from over.

Today, Tata-owned Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) joins the fray with an official press release issued by the company for the US market as reported by motor1. The luxury automotive brand announced plans to recall 54,000 cars in United States and this is just the first wave of many to come.

According to the same press release, JLR will be replacing 20,000 Jaguars XFs from the 2009-2011MY and on 34,000 Range Rovers from the 2007-2011MY.

The vehicles in the above mentioned range pose a high-risk of a rupture, that is caused when the inflator housing is exposed to high humidity for long periods of time. When this happens the part goes bad and instead of inflating the airbag, the inflator breaks up into a cloud of shrapnel which apart from rupturing the airbag also harms the driver in front of it.

As you may have noticed, this is an older range of vehicles that is being recalled. The current JLR range thankfully does not offer the faulty airbags. The Japanese company Takata however is still selling airbags to a number of automakers as of today.

Strangely, this is not the first time Takata has been called out for a faulty car parts. The Takata seat belt recall was mess of equal proportions. The fault was noticed when Honda vehicles owners complained that their seat belt buckles either failed to latch, or releasing automatically and at times even in accidents.

As for the airbag problem, Takata admitted that the explosive propellants used in the said airbags came from a Mexican subsidiary that mishandled the the manufacturing process.