GM Recalls Saturn Astra for Takata Airbags
CARS.COM — Yet another car has been identified from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s huge Jan. 22 expansion of Takata airbag recalls. GM announced today that it would recall the Saturn Astra hatchback from the 2008 and 2009 model years for potentially defective Takata driver’s-side inflators.
Related: More Takata Recall News
The announcement is part of a larger Takata recall that also involves Saab 9-3 and 9-5 luxury cars from the 2003 to 2011 model years, which we reported on Jan. 26. GM says the campaign involves about 180,000 U.S. cars in total. About 162,000 are Saab 9-3s and 9-5s — roughly 50,000 more than GM originally estimated last month — while the Saturn Astra accounts for the remainder.
GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson confirmed to Cars.com that today’s announcement stems from Takata’s Jan. 22 recall expansion, but he did not say when parts would be available for owners to service their cars.
“They’ll get a letter fairly soon, [but] I don’t have a date yet” on parts availability, Wilkinson said. “I think we’ve got an idea, but we’re not ready to announce it yet.”
It’s also unclear where owners can get the fix. GM shuttered Saturn in late 2009 and sold Saab a few months later. In the past, owners from either brand could generally get repairs at existing GM dealerships — that is, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet or GMC — but the automaker is “still working out some of the details” for where it will service today’s recall, Wilkinson said. “We will provide that info in the owner letters.”
With the Astra’s inclusion, it appears that virtually all of the more than 5 million vehicles involved in Takata’s Jan. 22 expansion have been identified. More than 40 percent came from Honda; BMW, Daimler Vans, Ford, GM, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz and the Volkswagen Group (including Audi) accounted for the rest. The expansion exclusively involves driver’s-side airbags.
So far, airbag recalls from Takata Corp., which involve inflators that can rupture from too much pressure, have been linked to at least 10 deaths worldwide and spawned around 28 million airbag recalls in at least 24 million cars in the U.S. alone. Click here to see which cars and airbags are involved.
