Honda’s American division is recalling certain model year 2009-2013 Pilot and 2011-2013 Odyssey passenger vehicles manufactured from March 13, 2008, through December 21, 2012, after it was discovered that one or more rivets that attach the airbag module to the airbag cover may be missing.
The Japanese carmaker informed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that the recall affects 748,481 vehicles sold in the United States.
Honda told the safety agency that on July 17, 2012, one of its workers observed noise in the area of the steering wheel and found the source to be a rivet missing from the vehicle’s driver’s airbag module cover.
“Inspection of other vehicles and components at the time led to the conclusion that this was an isolated incident,” said Honda in a filing with the NHTSA. “A subsequent investigation determined that a single missing airbag cover rivet would not affect compliance, and may only minimally affect safety.”
However, on November 13 of the same year, another worker discovered a second driver’s airbag cover missing rivets, this time 4 of the 6 rivets were not present.
“Further inspection of on hand parts inventory and vehicles found 5 additional suspect parts, each missing 1 of the 6 rivets. This initiated an investigation of supplier manufacturing processes and production records,” said Honda.
The Japanese automaker told the NHTSA that it is not aware of any accidents or injuries related to this problem.
Honda will notify owners and instruct them to take their vehicle to a dealer, with the recall expected to being in mid February.
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