THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, May 22, 1995 TAG: 9505220040
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: DETROIT LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
Federal safety officials and automobile makers plan to announce what could be the largest auto recall in history on Tuesday.
The recall would aim to repair defective front seat belts in roughly 8 million cars, minivans and sport utility vehicles.
The defective belts are in 8.8 million vehicles. The companies planning to join in Tuesday's announcement account for roughly 90 percent of those autos.
Plans for the recall were first reported Sunday in The Detroit News.
The seat belts are in vehicles sold from late 1985 to 1991 by 11 Japanese and American auto companies, and the federal government is negotiating recall agreements with all of them.
The recall, which will not cost consumers, follows months of investigation by federal officials into the seat belts, made by Takata Corp., a Japanese company. Investigators have found that over time the plastic release button in the belts can grow brittle and chip, preventing the buckle from locking securely. The buttons seem to be vulnerable to ultraviolet light and seem to deteriorate in a matter of years.
There have been more than 700 complaints that the Takata beltsjammed or failed to lock or unlock. Some consumers indicated that the orange plastic piece of the belt button had chipped off and fallen into the buckle, jamming it.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has recorded 539 consumer complaints and 47 injuries but no deaths because of the seat belt problem.
Most of the seat belts were installed in vehicles made by Honda and Nissan. The Honda Accord and Nissan Pathfinder are two of the most popular vehicles expected to be included in the recall.
But the seat belts were also installed in vehicles sold during model years 1986 through 1991 by the Big Three auto makers, as well as Daihatsu, Isuzu, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Subaru and Suzuki.
An estimated 3.7 million Honda cars with the belts have been sold in the United States. The company has received 200 customer complaints.
The agency has been investigating the belts since October. Automakers who used the Takata belts have reported thousands of warranty claims for seat belt repairs or replacements.
Takata has said the buckle's release button has since been strengthened by changing the materials used and the button's design.
NHTSA, the companies and Takata have declined to discuss the cost of a recall. The Detroit News has estimated that it could exceed $1 billion. The companies and Takata also have declined to discuss who would pay for the replacements.
It is difficult to gauge the cost of the recall or how the costs might be borne by each company. But some estimates put the cost of each repair at more than $100, meaning the total could be well over $1 billion.
In one of the largest previous recalls, about 6.7 million Chevrolets sold from 1965 to 1969 had defective engine mounts, said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, a consumer group founded by Ralph Nader.The largest recall in the NHTSA's nearly 30-year history was in 1980, when Ford voluntarily recalled 23 million 1970 to 1979 cars and trucks with automatic transmissions that critics said could slip from park to reverse without warning.
The breadth of the seat belt recall testifies to the extent to which Japanese auto companies, in a practice increasingly imitated by the Big Three, rely upon a single source to supply a given part.
Government and company officials declined to comment on the recall Sunday, other than to say the investigation was continuing with full cooperation from the companies. John Bailey, a spokesman for Takata's North American subsidiary, Takata Inc., said, ``We continue to cooperate with NHTSA, and we will continue to do so throughout this situation.''
Takata says it believes the release buttons' tendency to crack after several years is due to faults in the plastic, according to The Detroit News. The plastic was supplied by Japan Synthetic Rubber, Japan's largest manufacturer of rubber products.
NHTSA is looking into the composition of the buckle plastic. ILLUSTRATION: AUTOMOBILES AFFECTED
SOURCE: Associated Press
[For a copy of the graphic, see microfilm for this date.]
KEYWORDS: RECALL SEAT BELTS AUTOMOBILE by CNB