Air Bag Inspections Urged
After air bags allegedly sold by a Chinese company were linked to 10 U.S. driver deaths, auto dealers and other car servicers are being encouraged to conduct air bag safety inspections to identify any suspect units.
The National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence, or ASE, issued detailed guidance for service technicians to inspect air bags of vehicles they work on to ensure they’re not from the same source as the deadly units.
ASE issued a graphic detailing how service technicians can inspect air bags to ensure they’re genuine and not among a suspect batch of imported units linked to deaths and injuries.
National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence
The efforts follow a determination by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that air bags linked to a company named DTN caused the deaths of 10 Americans and serious injury of two others.
NHTSA said the company denied making the air bags with inflators that exploded, claiming the units involved in the U.S. deaths and injuries were counterfeit. The federal agency says the suspect air bags are marked with the “DTN60DB” identifier.
“Whether the subject inflators were manufactured by DTN or are counterfeit does not change NHTSA’s finding that the inflators marked as DTN60DB are defective,” the agency said.
NHTSA said the air bags in question were likely illegally imported but nevertheless said it’s banning their import. The air bags that exploded upon deployment have so far all been in Chevrolet Malibus and Hyundai Sonatas, though NHTSA didn’t rule out their presence in other makes and models and said it doesn’t know how many of the suspect air bags were imported to the U.S.
ASE, meanwhile, said any air bags with the DTN marker should be replaced with genuine automaker units.
“Air bag systems are complex safety components that should only be inspected or serviced by trained professionals,” said ASE President and CEO Dave Johnson.
“When it comes to this type of safety-critical system, experience and expertise matter. ASE-certified professionals have passed stringent certification tests demonstrating their technical knowledge is consistent with the highest professional standards in the transportation industry.”
Last month, NHTSA warned consumers to research vehicles’ histories before buying and avoiding driving any whose air bag provenance hadn’t been confirmed.