Honda Goes to Oz’s Far Reaches to Fix Takata Airbags

The Takata airbag recall and repair program has spread to one of the globe’s most remote areas.

Honda Australia has sent a technician to Australia’s Torres Strait Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean as part of its commitment to repair all Honda vehicles subject to the biggest vehicle recall in history.

After learning Thursday Island and Horn Island, north of Cape York – Australia’s northernmost point – were home to a number of Honda vehicles affected by the recall, Honda Australia worked with mainland dealer Trinity Auto Group to send a Honda technician to the isolated area to complete the replacements.

The Torres Strait Islands span an area of 19,000 sq.-mi. (48,000 sq.-km) in the strait stretching from Cape York to Papua New Guinea. Their total land area is just 219 sq.-mi. (566 sq.-km).

Honda Australia Director Stephen Collins says the automaker is committed to reaching its target of 100% completion of repairs to all affected vehicles as soon as possible.

“This means with the support of our dealer network we will travel to wherever we need to across the country to repair free of charge every Honda customer’s car,” Collins says in a statement.

The trip to 1.3-sq.-mi. (3.5-sq.-km) Thursday Island, 24 miles (39 km) north of Cape York, involved working with a local mechanic who provided the technician with shop space to work on the Honda vehicles, some of which were ferried over from neighboring Horn Island.

The magnitude of the program is not lost on Honda, which has a team trying to reach every affected Honda vehicle owner.

“One of our biggest challenges is ensuring we have all affected customers in our database,” Collins says. “Our active-customer completion rate is 99% and our overall completion rate is sitting at 83%. The customers we are yet to reach are those who do not service through the Honda dealer network or current contact details aren’t known to the company.”

Honda Australia has completed more than 540,000 airbag-inflator repairs, but says there still are more than 100,000 inflators to be replaced in Honda vehicles across the country.

“Thursday Island is just one of many remote locations that we are sending our people to, to ensure we do everything we possibly can to protect our Honda customers,” Collins says.