Takata Recall Repair Rate Vexes NZ Auto Industry

The New Zealand motor industry wants the government to step in after owners brought in fewer than half of the cars with potentially lethal Takata airbags for repair.

The Motor Industry Assn. wants the government to require owners of affected vehicles to bring them into a franchised dealer for the recalled component to be replaced.

The industry group also wants the government to prevent used imported vehicles from completing import compliance unless the importers can show the vehicles have had their recalls completed.

At the end of February, there were about 320,000 new and used vehicles in New Zealand affected by the Takata recall process. The owners of about two-thirds had received recall notices, but only 134,000 had been brought in.

MIA CEO David Crawford says it is a large and complex logistical issue affecting new and used vehicles with two different types of Takata airbags and vehicle owners having a choice of whether they want to close out the recall.

“At present there is no mandatory process requiring owners of vehicles to undertake a recall if they are notified by the manufacturer to do so,” Crawford says in a statement.

He says the situation is exacerbated by used-vehicle importers who do not properly check, as required under the Fair Trading Act, that vehicles they are importing have had recalls closed out in the country from which they are being sourced.

“Mostly these vehicles are proceeding through import compliance without checking and then (are) on-sold to unsuspecting New Zealand consumers,” Crawford says. “The MIA is not opposing imports of used vehicles, but these vehicles should not be on-sold to consumers with outstanding (open) recalls.”

Earlier, Crawford said the degree of local apathy over the airbag issue was of huge concern.

“Certainly, we are not getting anywhere near the uptake that we would be happy with,” he said.

“There are an awful lot of vehicle owners who are choosing not to come in, and that’s a real worry for us because we cannot guarantee the safety of those (airbag) inflators.”