Takata Situation About To Get Worse?

The Takata airbag situation could become even more challenging this week. With another senate hearing looming and increasing questions from the media, the situation is poised to reach a new level before Christmas. On Wednesday, December 3rd, the Senate Commerce Committee will once again seek testimony from Takata and automaker representatives. This will be the second hearing on this issue, the last one occurred on November 20th. That hearing involved a top Takata official and automaker execs, the atmosphere was dicey, with some feeling that the answers given to congress weren’t sufficient. Senators Jay Rockafeller (D-WV) and Bill Nelson (D-FL) sent a letter to Takata expressing their dissatisfaction with the answers given by Takata SVP of Quality Assurance Hiroshi Shimizu, and asked for company documents related to their airbags.

Takata will have a difficult time responding to the current regional airbag recall, which mostly impacts the southern United States. If that recall went national it would provide what the Detroit Free Press has called a “logistical nightmare.” Scott Upham, a former Takata employee, doesn’t sound optimistic about this recall going well and questions Takata’s motives. Upham explained, “Takata doesn’t want this to go national because it will hurt their bottom line. They would have to make an average of a million inflators per month just to satisfy the limited regional recall in six months. There’s no way on God’s green Earth they’re going to do that.” Those strong words by a former employee are based on facts. Takata can currently produce 300,000 inflators per month. Their plan is to up that to 450,000 per month, a pace, which would allow them to catch up to the current regional recall by the middle of 2016.

Also contributing to the situation are reports that Toyota has added 57,000 vehicles to their recall list and the warning from the National Traffic Highway Safety Administration (NHTSA) aimed at Takata. The NHTSA has given Takata until December 2nd to issue a national recall on their airbags. Failure to comply could result of a fine of $7,000 per vehicle. Do you feel that fine is too steep? If a customer calls your store today asking to have their vehicle serviced for an airbag recalled, what do you tell them? How long would they have to wait to be serviced?