Faulty Takata airbag recall on track

  • 18/08/2018

There could be light at the end of the tunnel for a recall on Takata airbags.

Nearly half - 45 percent - have been replaced, with the Government saying there are now 146,000 fewer malfunctioning airbags in vehicles than this time a year ago.

David Crawford from the Motor Industry Association says they're on track.

"This time last year we knew there were about 320,000 vehicles potentially caught, and about 130,000 had been done."

The Government hopes to complete the recall by the end of next year.

"We are now approaching, in total, around about 247,000 vehicles have been completed," said Mr Crawford.

Vehicles with the faulty airbags, which could send shrapnel flying into passengers' faces, have been banned from importation since June.

Around 100 million vehicles worldwide are affected.

"As those vehicles come up for a warrant of fitness or an annual registration, we should be able to catch those then."

The faults were discovered in 2013, but then-Transport Minister Simon Bridges - now leader of the National Party - didn't issue a recall.

"We thought it was best to deal with it systematically and voluntarily - now they're doing it compulsorily, if that's what's the best evidence and advice is telling them to do at the moment, but it certainly wasn't back then," he told Newshub in April.

"There's always a safety-first approach, but the best evidence and advice was to start voluntarily and ratchet it up systematically, and that's what we've done. I suspect that's why the Government now is in a position of having worked through that."

Faulty Takata airbags have been linked to at least 23 deaths and 230 serious injuries - but none in New Zealand.

Newshub.