Honda Recalls 833,000 More Cars for Dangerous Airbags

Honda is expanding a recall for airbags that might explode with dangerous force by an additional 833,000 vehicles.

Honda says that the bags can inflate with too much force and a casing can break with the risk of injury or death. Honda said at the time of the last expansion of this recall that it was aware of 12 incidents, with 11 injuries and one death. You can read our coverage of the earlier recall expansion here.

Added now to the recall are certain of these models:

2001-02 Accord

2001-03 Civic

2002 Odyssey

2002-03 CR-V

2002-03 Acura 3.2 TL

2003 Acura 3.2 CL

Honda says it added these vehicles to the recall because it has determined that some may have had faulty air bags installed when they were replaced after a deployment in a crash. Honda said 2,430 faulty air bags were installed after crashes, but it doesn’t know which vehicles got them.

So the recall is being expanded to inspect the 833,000 vehicles for the defective replacements. An original in 2008 was for fewer than 4,000 2001 Accords and Civics. In February 2010, Honda added more than 378,000 cars.

Owners will be notified by mail this month. If an owner is sure the air bag has never been replaced, they can notify the company.Otherwise, it need to be inspected.