At a board of directors meeting in November, Takata said it would not have an interim dividend for the fiscal year ending March 2015.
The already grim news for Japanese air bag maker Takata, currently defying the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on defective inflator recalls, increased with the announcement that BMW and Ford Motor are following NHTSA’s recommendation by expanding their safety defect campaigns to cover more vehicles across the U.S.
Takata has refused to do so, and NHTSA has threatened to hold public hearngs. At least five fatalities are now associated with the inflator.
In an unusual and rare safety press release, Ford said at the request of NHTSA, it is expanding its recall of Takata driver-side airbag inflators. This latest recall includes 502,489 model year 2005-2008 Mustang and GT vehicles, an addition of 447,310.
This brings the total number of Ford vehicles being recalled for potentially defective Takata airbag inflators to 538,977. Ford is aware of one accident with an injury that may be related to what appears to be an unstable explosive used to inflate the bag.
BMW has expanded a U.S. regional recall for driver-side air bag inflators made by Takata to cover the entire country, after related Honda, Mazda, Toyota and FCA actions, aka Fiat Chrysler, and Ford recalls. The German luxury automaker told NHTSA that it would replace driver-side front air bags in about 140,000 BMW 3 Series vehicles in the U.S. from model years 2004 to 2006.
Ford is also conducting a regional on model year 2004-2005 Ford Ranger and 2005-2006 Ford GT vehicles originally sold, or ever registered, in geographic locations associated with high absolute humidity. That is, vehicles sold, or ever registered, in Florida, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Saipan, Guam, and American Samoa, as well as certain areas of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Georgia. Upon deployment of the passenger side frontal air bag, excessive internal pressure may cause the inflator to rupture sending shrapnel into the passenger compartment.
