8 ms·
'Do not drive': Toyota recalls some 50k older vehicles
- anotherhue 3y ago> The affected models include the 2003-2004 Corolla and Corolla Matrix, as well as the 2004-2005 RAV4.
- mr-marbo 3y agoOther articles have noted this also affects the 2003 to 2004 Pontiac Vibe, which is essentially a rebadged Toyota Corolla Matrix. https://apnews.com/article/toyota-takata-air-bag-explode-shrapnel-3c03be0d9454856cf52e48aaa6bda711 https://apnews.com/article/toyota-takata-air-bag-explode-shr...
- acheron 3y agoMy wife had a 2003 Vibe, they were contacting her about the airbag recall years ago. I'm not following why there's an update now? Isn't this the same recall?
- beart 3y agoI believe these vehicles were made in the same factory as a joint venture between Toyota and GM called NUMMI. There's a This American Life episode about it. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/403/transcript https://www.thisamericanlife.org/403/transcript
- TurkishPoptart 3y agoMy 2001 Camry was not affected by this. Hooray.
- justin66 3y agoOr they've calculated that there are few enough 2001 Camrys on the road 22 years later that the risk/reward for them does not justify doing a recall. Hooray?
- jacquesm 3y agoThat's not how that works. If Toyota doesn't do the recall they'll be forced by the NTSB. Recalls are how manufacturers avoid regulators cramping their style.
- rzzzt 3y agoSo Fight Club was not a documentary?
- jacquesm 3y agoGreat movie though. The Norton/Pitt combination worked really well.
- justin66 3y agoI'm pretty sure it's exactly how it works. If the NTSB was some sort of strict regulator who pushed ahead with recalling dangerous parts regardless of the risk and costs, they would have forced Toyota to commit to the recall announced today a decade ago. The risk of aging Takata airbags being explodey if moisture gets in has been a known issue for a very long time. I assume today's announcement represents some factor in the equation changing. Takata is caught up and can make lower volume parts again? There was an uptick in these older airbags exploding? Some other random political or economic factor? One thing that isn't new is the knowledge that these airbags are dangerous. (to be fair, I have no idea if the 2001 Camry's airbags might have used a completely different technology)
- jacquesm 3y agoWell, you're wrong. "A recall is issued when a manufacturer or NHTSA determines that a vehicle, equipment, car seat, or tire creates an unreasonable safety risk or fails to meet minimum safety standards. Most decisions to conduct a recall and remedy a safety defect are made voluntarily by manufacturers prior to any involvement by NHTSA. Manufacturers are required to fix the problem by repairing it, replacing it, offering a refund, or in rare cases repurchasing the vehicle." https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls Section 3 lower on the page.
- rasz 3y agoMore likely its affected but Toyota doesnt want to pay for it. Open up your wheel and look at the brand of airbag.
- roughly 3y agoThe Onion, prophetic as usual: https://www.theonion.com/toyota-recalls-1993-camry-due-to-fact-that-owners-reall-1819577805 https://www.theonion.com/toyota-recalls-1993-camry-due-to-fa...
- is_true 3y agoMeanwhile FORD says that the powershift gearbox is YOUR fault for not using it properly. American automakers are a joke.
- hackernewds 3y agoKIA still hasn't fixed the theft systems so it's not just Americans
- kube-system 3y agoMeh, there was never anything wrong with them. Immobilizers (or the lack thereof) have been on windows stickers as long as they've existed. Hyundai/Kia simply realized that their buyers DGAF about an immobilizer as much as they cared about being slightly cheaper than cars from other brands. And they were right, the cars sold well.
- ok_dad 3y agoSlightly cheaper meaning $50 to $160 according to Google. That seems like a really stupid thing to skimp on, so don't blame the consumer for this dumb decision. That's like 1% (corrected from 0.1%) of the price of a new car or something like that! What dumb engineering, what was KIA thinking?! -- Edit: I understand the reality of capitalism means a constant race to the bottom, I just don't like it. -- Edit 2: I am "posting too fast" so here is a response to a post way further down than this, so I don't lose my text I tried to comment with (Also, what the fuck HN!? I'm not one of those flame-baiters!? This is one of the few places I am comfortable talking to strangers and I get this bullshit...) I think you would have to define the minimum level of effort necessary to steal a car, then say that cars which do not pass that bar are probably defective. I would say the minimum bar should rise as tech changes, and today we could say the minimum is that an unskilled thief (a 'regular Joe') should not be able to steal a car without any specific knowledge. At least, I think that's reasonable. In this case, meth addicts could break a window and use a screwdriver to steal a car without an immobilizer, so that seems like a defective product to me.
- tromp 3y agoTakata airbag recalls have been ongoing since 2013, affecting dozens of car brands [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takata_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takata_Corporation
- themaninthedark 3y agoThere is another air bag company that may have to recall as well. https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/06/business/air-bag-recall/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/06/business/air-bag-recall/index...
- astura 3y agoThe National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has a portion of their website with information on the Takata airbag recall and a VIN search. This really is a gigantic problem. https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle-safety/takata-recall-spotlight https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle-safety/takata-recall-spotlight >Approximately 67 million Takata air bags (priority groups 1-12) have been recalled because these air bags can explode when deployed, causing serious injury or even death.
- bloopernova 3y agoThank you for posting that link! I think every car owner in the USA should check.
- ijhuygft776 3y agoMy thought as well.... was Toyota ignoring the problem?
- prima-facie 3y agoIt looks like a lot of other brands are affected. You can check your VIN here for example: https://www.fcai.com.au/is-my-airbag-safe https://www.fcai.com.au/is-my-airbag-safe
- globular-toast 3y agoI had my Honda airbag replaced around 2018 due to this, I think. I found it quite funny to have work done by the dealership on an almost 15 year old car.
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y agothis article links to https://toyota.com/recall https://toyota.com/recall but entering the VIN to my 2004 corolla and clicking submit does nothing but grey out the submit button. Anyone have any insight into what's going on here? I've tried this in both Brave and Chrome.
- dragant 3y agoI called Toyota dealer service center near me. Gave them my VIN and they said I already had my airbags replaced years ago. I have a 2004 Toyota Matrix. So there's nothing new? Maybe catching the last remaining ones that did not get serviced?
- justin66 3y agoYou'd hope it is something like that. The Takata airbag thing has been a known issue for a really long time.
- kube-system 3y agoTakata also makes different types of inflators, and cars often have different types of inflators in them at the same time, and all of these airbag recalls have been on specific inflators made at specific times or specific lots that were known to be problematic. Some were also only recalled when the vehicle was sold or operated in humid areas. I had a vehicle that was recalled once for the driver side airbag, and then later called back for a recall on the passenger side airbag. IIRC some cars early on were even recalled for the same inflator twice when it was found that the replacement inflator had issues. There's all kinds of details in the weeds here.
- Stagnant 3y agoTurning ublock origin off and refreshing the page solved it for me.
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y agothank you, that solved it for me. I opened in an incognito tab in chrome.
- jstarfish 3y ago> if the airbag deploys, a part inside is more likely to explode and shoot sharp metal fragments Paging Brandon Lee... No death is more indignified than getting killed by a safety feature.
- snovymgodym 3y agoI don't think you could call what happened to Brandon Lee "getting killed by a safety feature" so much as getting killed by negligence of the production crew. Blanks are dangerous, especially if you're using them with an unmodified firearm. Even if there's nothing lodged in the barrel as was the case with Lee, a blank cartridge can kill you just with gas pressure if the barrel is held close enough to something important. That's part of the reason that blank-fire adapters used in live-fire military exercises plug the barrel. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/US_Navy_101013-N-3013W-430_Construction_Electrician_2nd_Class_Carl_Harms%2C_from_Lake_Odessa%2C_Mich.%2C_assigned_to_Naval_Mobile_Construction_Battalion.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/US_Navy_...
- globalise83 3y agoI remember a military instructor showing us what happens if you fire a blank round from a rifle into a folded newspaper. In one word "confetti".
- vkou 3y agoAt what range?
- arp242 3y agoConfetti range.
- ghufran_syed 3y agosame, in england - they fired a 303 and a 5.56 caliber blank round at around 10cm range into an empty soda can, it basically ripped it in two
- rconti 3y agoI've been wishing my 25 year old BMW would be affected by an airbag recall because I think I'd rather have a new one than a 25 year old one!
- sumtechguy 3y agoMy 2003 3 (built in 2002) was. Think they had to replace it like 3 times.
- user2342 3y agoDid Takata produce any Airbags, that don't need replacement?
- throwup238 3y agoThey sold a few to the SDF as fragmentation grenades that probably work as intended. Probably.
- zhengyi13 3y agoFortunately I totalled my RAV4 back in 2018, so I'm just fine. First time I'd ever had an airbag deployed; I'm glad it didn't kill me :/
- theultdev 3y agoThese are real recalls btw, for a safety feature that kills you. (airbag frag grenades) I know some people have been conditioned that software rollbacks are recalls due to all the anti-Tesla articles.
- belter 3y agoIronically, those are more likely to kill you, than these airbags.
- theultdev 3y agoNot really, Teslas are quite safe and don't have the killer Takata airbags like the many other car brands. But yeah that facetiousness is why I said the statement above. It's really easy to lookup Tesla safety ratings so I won't get dragged into what you're trying to do.
- Night_Thastus 3y agoTbh, 24 deaths in all the years since 2003 is a pretty tiny number considering just how many of these airbags were used. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but it's also pretty low rate-wise.
- theultdev 3y agoYes 24 people that had to die for no reason, but yeah it's low for the massive fuck up that this was. I don't really know what the point of that statement is though. Reads like part of a Boeing spokesman's speech.
- Night_Thastus 3y agoMy point is that the person who made the statement "those are more likely to kill you than these airbags" wasn't really all that off the mark. There's been more (~35) deaths due to Tesla issues (fires, self-driving, etc) in a few years than in the 2 decades this problem airbag has existed.
- kotaKat 3y agoIs this a net-new airbag recall? I had to take my 2004 Matrix in a few years ago for an airbag recall identical to this. When I went the next day to pick the vehicle up, I was informed that the new airbag they had installed caused the airbag light to turn on(!) and thus were now waiting for another replacement airbag from Toyota and stuck me in a rental car for an extra day because of the unforeseen delay. Glad to know I was driving with an equally explosive shrapnel bag for a couple years after that until a low-speed collision that totaled it (and didn't deploy the airbags).
- beart 3y agoI had a Matrix as well, wish I still owned it because it was a nifty little 5- speed. I remember bringing it in for airbag recalls at least twice in the years I owned it, and continued to receive recall notices for some time after selling it, which tells me there was at least one more recall for airbag issues.
- everyone 3y agoIs there anywhere I can check my VIN for stuff like this? I have an Audi from around that era and am in Ireland. I have been looking around, but there doesnt seem to be one place for this, eg. one person linked a .au domain.
- TacticalCoder 3y ago50 000 is not much. Toyota sells 10 million+ vehicles per year.