Takata Airbag Lawsuit: The Largest Auto Recall in History

The Defect

Takata airbags used an ammonium-nitrate-based propellant that can degrade over time, especially with heat and humidity. When such an airbag deploys, the inflator can rupture and spray metal fragments into the vehicle cabin — turning a safety device into a shrapnel bomb. The defect has been linked to more than 25 deaths and hundreds of injuries worldwide, some from crashes that would otherwise have been survivable.

It is one of the most dangerous auto defects ever precisely because the failure occurs at the moment the device is supposed to save a life.

The Recall and Settlements

The response became the largest auto recall in US history — more than 67 million airbags across roughly 42 million vehicles from many automakers, and over 100 million worldwide. Takata pleaded guilty to criminal wrongdoing and reached a $1 billion resolution with the Justice Department, then filed for bankruptcy and set up trusts to pay death and injury claims. Automakers separately paid to settle economic-loss class actions — a combined $1.5 billion-plus, including a roughly $553 million deal among several brands and a nearly $300 million Ford settlement.

The economic-loss settlements compensate owners; the victim trusts pay for deaths and injuries, on a scale up to millions of dollars for the most severe outcomes.

What Owners Should Know

This defect is a live safety issue: check your VIN on the free federal recall lookup, because many vehicles are still on the road with unrepaired Takata inflators, and the repair is free. Some inflators are dangerous enough that automakers have issued “do not drive” warnings until fixed. Do not ignore a Takata recall notice.