Exploding air bags spur do-not-drive order for 276k Dodge, Chrysler vehicles

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/03/dodge-chrysler-airbag-recall/

by bookofjoe • 4 years ago

17 11 4 years ago

washingtonpost.com

bookofjoe• 4 years ago

https://archive.ph/RJvhd

leephillips• 4 years ago

Can one disable the airbag, say, by pulling a fuse?

Karstographer• 4 years ago

You may be able to pull the fuse for the ACU, but you would be trading the slight chance that you get into an accident requiring restraint and that the inflator has experienced excessive degradation and produces shrapnel, with a much higher chance that you get into an accident that requires restraint and your seatbelt pretensioners and airbags don't function at all since you've disabled them.

jaclaz2• 4 years ago

I don't understand fully the way it is supposed to work, should all affected vehicles be stopped immediately?

And then they should not be driven to service?

Even if Dodge/Chrysler have enough spare air bags, if it takes 1 hour time to replace it, that is around 300,000 hours work, and then if the car cannot be driven to service it would take probably many more hours of towing/collecting/delivering.

Wouldn't it take months?

ehzy2• 4 years ago

300k airbags is pocket change, so to speak. The Takata recall covered tens of millions of vehicles.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takata_Corporation

jaclaz2• 4 years ago

I understand that, but I wasn't talking about the value of the airbags, I was asking about the procedure to replace them, if (invented numbers) there are 1500 people working on this replacement, it takes 200 hours to replace 300,000 airbags, which is a bit more than one full month time, which means that on average some 300,000 cars would be stopped for 15 days.

Most other recalls I have read about tend to be of the kind "there is no hurry, you can continue using the car normally, you will be contacted by the dealer and at first occasion we will replace component X", this one, according to the article is "stop the vehicle now".

crazygringo2• 4 years ago

The affected model years are 2005 to 2010.

Genuine question, how does it take 17 years to figure out the air bags are defective because they explode with too much force?

I'm just surprised -- it makes sense to me when product recalls happen within a few weeks/months. But nearly two decades, I can't quite wrap my head around. What was observed now that wasn't being observed previously, and why only now?

tablespoon• 4 years ago

I'm just surprised -- it makes sense to me when product recalls happen within a few weeks/months. But nearly two decades, I can't quite wrap my head around. What was observed now that wasn't being observed previously, and why only now?

Have you ever worked on a system with a ten-year-old bug (determined by looking at source history to find when it was introduced), but that was only recently discovered? Lots of problems only manifest in very rare circumstances and/or are difficult to diagnose.

Another possibility is the effects of aging weren't properly predicted. Maybe the airbags functioned properly when now, but after 10+ years, something changed causing some of them to malfunction.

mrguyorama• 4 years ago

Takata made the change that caused all these problems (switching to a less stable over time explosive compound) to save a few cents. Their chemical engineers noted that this was a likely issue, and they were ignored. Takata then learned this was happening, and continued to ignore, suppress, and claim that each time it happened was an isolated incident, and did not cooperate with investigators.

Basically a company being a company.

crazygringo2• 4 years ago

Thanks, got it -- that's very helpful. So in other words, this wasn't an issue about it taking this long to discover -- it was an issue about being actively suppressed. That makes much more sense.

Exploding air bags spur do-not-drive order for 276k Dodge, Chrysler vehicles

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