Fiat Chrysler Automobiles to Stop Using Rupture-Prone Takata Airbag Inflators
CARS.COM — As details emerge on which automakers still use defective Takata airbag inflators, one said it will drop them altogether in the days to come. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced today that it will stop using non-desiccated ammonium nitrate Takata inflators — the kind linked to 10 U.S. deaths from shrapnel in an airbag deployment — starting next week in the U.S. and by mid-September worldwide.
Related: More on the Takata Airbag Recalls
The last FCA vehicle to carry the problematic inflators is the 2016 Jeep Wrangler, whose passenger-side Takata inflator is non-desiccated. FCA is transitioning the Wrangler’s inflator to another design.
FCA says most of its airbag inflators employ another propellant, while some have ammonium nitrate inflators with desiccant, a moisture inhibitor that Takata claims mitigates the risk of rupture. FCA agrees, noting that desiccated ammonium nitrate inflators are unassociated with inflator ruptures “of the kind attributed to certain non-desiccated ammonium nitrate inflators.”
“We’ve been phasing these out steadily,” spokesman Eric Mayne told Cars.com. “This marks the end of the line. If there’s a vehicle on the lot that has it, you’ll be told. But the Wranglers are the last of the bunch.”
You can typically find the date of manufacturer by month on a sticker in the vehicle’s doorjamb, but Mayne cautioned against a specific cut-off date — June and July, for example — for Wrangler shoppers to think they’re in the clear. He said FCA has instructed dealers to tell any Wrangler shoppers whether their car has one of the problematic ones.
Mayne said no other 2016 model-year FCA vehicles besides the Wrangler have the problematic inflators. But FCA said dealers will notify shoppers who stumble upon an older FCA vehicle with one of the inflators in question that has it — a similar move to Toyota, which said June 10 that dealers would notify shoppers of any new cars that have the problematic inflators.
As for FCA’s cars already under Takata recall, “zero” replacement inflators have non-desiccated ammonium nitrate, Mayne said. That’s hardly the case industrywide; a U.S. Senate commerce committee report released June 1 found that of the 11 automakers that had launched Takata recalls, six exclusively used Takata’s non-desiccated inflators as replacements.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has ordered Takata to stop making ammonium nitrate inflators whether they’re desiccated or not, but the Senate report named FCA among nine automakers — including Daimler Vans, Ford, Honda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota and the Volkswagen Group — that still sell or plan to sell new cars with ammonium nitrate Takata inflators. The report went on to name FCA among a subset of the group that still makes non-desiccated ammonium nitrate inflators. The others are Mitsubishi, Toyota and Volkswagen.
Today’s announcement appears to remove FCA from that subset. Under Takata’s consent order, non-desiccated ammonium nitrate inflators will have to be recalled completely by the end of 2019.
