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‘Don’t Even Drive These Particular Cars to the Dealer:’ Shrapnel Concerns Leads To Toyota, Pontiac Recall – Twitchy

January 31, 2024
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'Don't Even Drive These Particular Cars to the Dealer:' Shrapnel Concerns Leads To Toyota, Pontiac Recall – Twitchy
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We would consider this just as much a PSA as anything else. Apparently, several older models of Toyota and Pontiacs are subject to recall and the companies seem to be freaking out. They literally don’t even want you to drive the relevant cars at all—even to the repair place.

From the article:

DETROIT — Toyota and General Motors are telling the owners of about 61,000 older Corolla, RAV4, Matrix/ Pontiac Vibe models to stop driving them because their Takata airbag inflators are at risk of exploding and hurling shrapnel.

The urgent warning Monday covers:

* Certain Corolla compact cars and Matrix hatchbacks from the 2003 and 2004 model years.

RAV4 small SUVs from 2004 and 2005.

* Also covered are about 11,000 Pontiac Vibes from 2003 and 2004, which are essentially the same as the Matrix and were made at the same California factory.

* Most of the vehicles are in the U.S.

‘If the airbag deploys, a part inside is more likely to explode and shoot sharp metal fragments, which could cause serious injury or death to the driver or passengers,’ Toyota said in a statement.

Owners can go to nhtsa.gov/recalls and enter their 17-digit vehicle identification number to see if their cars are affected. If you’re not the original owner of the vehicle, the manufacturer’s recall letter might not reach you, so be sure to do the VIN check…. 

Takata used volatile ammonium nitrate to create a small explosion to inflate airbags 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 including people in Malaysia and Australia. In addition, about 400 people have been injured. The exploding airbags sent Takata of Japan into bankruptcy.

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And the article has this eyebrow-raising line:

Both companies said owners should contact a local dealer instead of driving the cars in for repairs. Dealers will provide options such as mobile repair, towing the car to a dealer, or vehicle pickup and delivery.

We don’t know if the devices are that volatile, but we suppose if we had one of these cars, we would defer to the car companies on the issue.

However, it all raises an issue with us. We have watched the rise of airbags throughout our lives. We are old enough to remember how originally, the promise was that airbags just might save your life if you didn’t have your seatbelt on. Then it quickly morphed into this is a device that will kill or seriously injure you if you are in an accident and not wearing your seatbelt. Also, this device will kill your baby in an accident even if you have them properly secured in a car seat, so you have to put your baby in the back seat, now. And, of course, since the dawn of airbags, we have seen more incidents of tired or harried parents simply forgetting their children are in the back seat and leaving them in a hot or cold car when they shouldn’t.

Further, you have to think that a certain number of accidents are caused by parents having to deal with children who are crying loudly and they can’t do anything to help their child because they are in the back seat. Anyone who has spent any appreciable time with children know that if a baby simply drops a favorite toy or whatever, you might hear instant crying. If the baby could be safely placed in the front passenger seat, the parent might be able to quickly address the problem, make the child stop crying and thus concentrate better on their driving. The same might apply to many problems that might crop up with a baby as one is driving. We doubt we can calculate how many accidents are caused by this problem.

We aren’t ready to declare that airbags are more trouble than they are worth. But we aren’t sure that they aren’t and, most crucially, we don’t think it is right for the government to force them on us. For instance, if you want to install an off switch for your airbag, you can’t just do it. You have to fill out a form with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in order to ask permission before you are allowed to install the switch. We tend to think that if every car has to have these airbags, they should also have to have switches that allow you to turn them off and it should be entirely up to you whether you turn them off or not. Let people make up their own minds—and that would seem to solve the problem of this Toyota/Pontiac recall immediately bricking your car.

On to reactions:

It honestly makes us wonder if they are overreacting, but again, we would defer to the car companies. If they want to go to the trouble and expense of either coming to you to fix your car, or towing your car to the repair place, we tend to think they feel like there’s a good reason for it.

The notion that the relevant chemicals deteriorated over time seems to explain it.

This sounds suspiciously like it was written by Toyota’s marketing department. Still, it is fair to say this. Cars are complex machines. Even the best-made cars will inevitably have problems, many of which justify a recall. So, while it is probably embarrassing for them to have to recall a car, it is good for them to be so pro-active in handling this issue.

We’re not sure the same idiot AI systems that has been caught lying about citations in legal cases should be trusted to drive your car, but a more ‘dumb’ system of self-driving might make sense. It might open up car use to people who can’t normally drive at all, such as people too blind to drive. Further, if it is something that can be turned on and off, it can be essentially a permanent designated driver for people who like to get drunk now and then. As for safety, we would note that the test isn’t whether or not they are perfectly safe, but whether they are as safe as a human—knowing that humans are not themselves 100% safe when driving.

Again, we feel that degradation of relevant chemicals addresses this concern.

We wouldn’t know off hand.

Interesting take. Certainly, if the problem is merely a minor software update—as opposed to something that really could prove to be dangerous—the use of the term ‘recall’ would seem to be questionable. Indeed, if the term is used too often to describe minor fixes, it might desensitize people to the word.

Aren’t you glad this protection is forced on people?

In any case, given how seriously Toyota and GM are treating the issue, you should take it seriously, too. Even if you don’t have one of these cars, make sure you spread the word in case you know someone who does. Yes, obviously we would prefer that you spread it by sending them links to this site (ka-ching!), but really … tell them any way you can.

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