Honda Facebook Notification: Update Your Takata Recall Status
CARS.COM — Honda has prepared a new Takata airbag recall public service announcement and, in addition to seeking TV airings, it will use Facebook’s Custom Audience tool to connect with owners and show them the PSA.
Related: Is Your Car Part of the Takata Airbag Recall?
The ad features a woman from Georgia who survived a Takata airbag failure in her Honda but suffered permanent eye damage. When exposed to long-term heat and humidity, Takata’s ammonium-nitrate airbag inflators can deploy with too much force and rupture, spewing shrapnel into the cabin.
The woman, Stephanie Erdman, testified in 2014 at a congressional hearing on the Takata problem and at the time offered to help Honda encourage owners to get their recalled cars repaired. Her appearance in the ad is the latest of these activities.
Honda also has begun using Facebook’s Custom Audience advertising tool to target owners of recalled, but unrepaired, cars. The tool will let the automaker match encrypted email addresses associated with recalled vehicle identification numbers in its database with the owners’ Facebook UserIDs. Then, when the owners log into Facebook, they will be presented in their Facebook feed with a custom recall message that features Erdman’s PSA.
The massive, phased Takata airbag inflator recall already covers more than 46 million inflators in 29 million cars from multiple makers in the U.S. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration expects it to affect 64 million to 69 million inflators in 42 million cars by 2020. You can check your car for recalled airbags Honda’s online search tool at recalls.honda.com or recalls.acura.com, or look on NHTSA’s VIN search tool.
Honda has been a leader in trying creative ways to prod owners to get their dangerous airbag inflators replaced. In the most direct effort, it began a pilot program in August to send teams out to directly contact and arrange repairs for owners of the most dangerous vehicles, the group of so-called Alpha cars identified by NHTSA as posing the highest risk, 2001-03 Honda and Acura vehicles that you can find listed here, including the 2001 Accord pictured above.
If your vehicle, regardless of make, has a recalled Takata airbag and it has not been repaired, you should watch the video below, then call your dealer to make an appointment.
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