‘Wrong Airbag Timing’ Forces Nissan to Issue a Recall

MANILA: It seems the credibility of auto brands regarding airbags has succumbed to failure over the last couple of years, further stoked up by the infamous recall kicked off by the popular Japanese airbags supplier Takata.

Recently, Mitsubishi had issued a recall for three of its models and the distress of airbags is still not over yet. As if the breaking off the ties of Ford with Takata airbags along with other various automakers was not enough to shake up the global automarket, an elite Japanese automaker, Nissan has just announced a recall for its vehicles concerning the safety perspective. Nissan Motor announced on Friday that it will recall around 3.5 million vehicles globally out of which 3.2 million will be in the United States alone, alleging that front-passenger airbags may or may not work in accordance with any crash case due to malfunctioned sensors.

The faulty airbag sensor may either be reprogrammed or replaced and the planned solution varies from vehicle to vehicle. Software reprogramming will be done in some models while other models will have hardware replacement. This is the fourth recall since 2013 and it also marks an end to the two-year effort by federal regulators to make sure the extensive problems with the occupant sensing system is fixed by the automaker within a given time. In its first instance, around 990,000 vehicles were recalled by the company. The Nissan recall will be implied on certain models produced between 2013-16 as three serious injuries have already been linked to this issue of airbags not deploying on time. Out of the total recall, 622,000 Sentras are also going to deal with a second recall due to the malfunction that may deploy an airbag in a crash when it is not supposed to, as when a child is on the front passenger seat.

Nissan owners now can expect a notification letter from Nissan within 60 days and dealers will be made aware of Nissan's remedy plan by the end of May.

Below is a list of all Nissan vehicles which will be a part of recall:

• 2013 Infiniti JX35
• 2014-2016 Infiniti Q50
• 2014-2016 Infiniti QX60
• 2013-2016 Nissan Altima
• 2013-2016 Nissan Leaf
• 2016-2017 Nissan Maxima
• 2015-2016 Nissan Murano
• 2013-2016 Nissan NV200
• 2014-2016 Nissan NV200 Taxi
• 2013-2017 Nissan Pathfinder
• 2014-2017 Nissan Rogue
• 2013-2016 Nissan Sentra

At the time of writing, Nissan Philippines hasn't confirmed if there will be any recall for the Nissan Altima models sold  in the country.

Also Read: Honda Philippines Recall 2016, An Addition to its Takata Backlog