Federal security regulators are asking car producers about doubtlessly faulty air-bag inflators estimated to be in tens of hundreds of thousands of vehicles, following a string of recall campaigns and accidents.
In letters despatched this week to a couple of dozen auto makers and suppliers, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration mentioned it was in search of info on inflators used for each passenger and driver-side air luggage that had been made by Knoxville, Tenn.-based ARC Automotive Inc.
The letters mark the most recent step in an investigation begun greater than seven years in the past by NHTSA, the nation’s prime auto-safety regulator, into ARC’s inflators. The elements have exploded not less than six occasions in autos on U.S. roads in crashes which have left two individuals useless and 4 injured, in line with NHTSA filings and courtroom paperwork.
ARC didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. NHTSA declined to remark concerning the letters.
So far, General Motors Co.
GM,
Ford Motor Co.
F,
BMW AG
BMW,
and Volkswagen AG
VOW,
have issued seven comparatively small recall campaigns linked to NHTSA’s examination protecting about 6,400 autos with ARC inflators. The most up-to-date got here in July, when VW mentioned it was recalling about 1,200 vehicles in response to an inflator rupture in a 2016 Audi A3 e-tron that injured the driving force.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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