[AdamLAX]

My girlfriend has a 2004 Honda Accord Coupe (EX, I believe) which has not been listed in the giant airbag recall(s). After 9+ months of contacting multiple Honda departments (even a letter to the CEO's office), we have been told -- repeatedly -- that Honda does not know what kind of airbag they put in the car. Maybe it's a Takata, maybe it's not. They insist they don't know and can't find out. That, alone, seems pretty outrageous to us given that people have died from faulty airbags/inflators. All we want to know is what's in there, it really shouldn't be that hard of a question.

Her mom got the same car but in the sedan version at the same time from the same dealership (both bought new) and it was included in the recall. My girlfriend's car has been kept in a high-humidity area, which is really bad if it's a Takata airbag in there.

Frustrated, I tried to remove the airbags to learn more. The passenger side one came out easily, but there are no numbers I've been able to identify online. One barcode says P0YK$AGCW0D (I believe zeros and not ohs), another barcode says G0000066201, and an ink stamp says SDB3X22Y. Does anybody know how we might be able to identify the manufacturer from this information?

Related, we still can't get her driver side airbag out. One of the torx screws came right out, but the other one stripped (apparently Honda thought is would be a bright idea to put LocTite all over it). I've used multiple types of bolt and screw extractors to try to reverse the thing out, but it won't budge. I've also tried drilling right through the middle but no dice. (Yes, of course I disconnected the battery and all airbag wires first.) Any other suggestions on how to get it out?

 

[JenerationX]

The coupes have a completely different inflator from the sedans and the recall does not effect them. Look at the steering wheels, they're completely different size and shape and have a different inflator. If you had the bad airbag inflator in that car, it would be part of the recall. It's not. Passenger airbags were not affected in the Accord coupe either... they were in some Civics, CR-Vs and Pilots.

 

[mtts60]

Related, we still can't get her driver side airbag out. One of the torx screws came right out, but the other one stripped (apparently Honda thought is would be a bright idea to put LocTite all over it).

It is a good idea. Do you really want that thing falling out on you while you're driving?

I didn't think so.

 

[jimijam]

pull your manties up, bro. MORE people have died from not having airbags than this little recall you are so scared of. call your insurance company and ask them what kind of coverage you have when you disable the airbags. seriously. either take the bus of buy one of the very few cars on the road that doesn't have airbags. crap, that reminds me I need to be watching out for polar bears in my back yard because all their ice is melting because I refuse to utilize mass transit. gonna run....

 

[AdamLAX]

So who actually manufactured it? And, even better, what's the difference in the inflator? (i.e., what compound are they using that's more stable?)

Unfortunately, trusting the logic that "it's not part of the recall" has resulted in people being killed and maimed by Takata airbags. A lot of cars weren’t included in the recall — until they were. Honda started with a 4,000 airbag recall in 2008. It went to 500,000 in 2009 and nearly doubled the next year. Now there are 34,000,000 Takatas being recalled across 11 manufacturers. In fact, Honda expanded their own airbag recalls at least four more times AFTER they settled a seven-figure lawsuit that claimed they'd known about the problems for years. (If you want to check my math: Timeline: Takata air bag recalls | Reuters.) Honda and Takata have proven completely untrustworthy on this issue. I'm not willing to play semantics games with my life. All I want to know is what kind of airbag is in the car. That really should not be a tough question on such a highly-regulated part.

As for the LocTite, if that's all that's keeping the airbag from falling out while driving, we all have much, much bigger problems. Parts of the engine have a lot more vibration and plenty of screws that manage to stay put without LocTite. You don't hear about engines falling apart all the time. If nothing else, they used far too much on these airbag screws. I'm not the only one with this problem, I've found lots of complaints on various message boards. It's not like airbags are supposed to be permanent. Not only do they get replaced, themselves, but they must be removed to do any number of things around the steering wheel (on some models, even fixes as minor as replacing the lights in the on-wheel controls).

If you read my post, I never said I don't want airbags. I just don't want ones that have a thoroughly documented track record of causing preventable deaths and regulatory investigations over related coverups. If they're NOT the dangerous ones, great. If they are the dangerous ones, they should be replaced. Pretty simple.

 

[jimijam]

don't wreck the car and you have nothing to worry about. the sky isn't gonna fall on you; i promise. there have been millions of car wrecks in this country since the day your car rolled off the truck so the miniscule number of dealths and/or injuries because of these alleged faulty airbags is just a pimple on a knat's ass. good luck and stay safe out there.

 

[AdamLAX]

Is that what you'd say to the families of the people who died because of these airbags? Or to the people who've had shrapnel rip into their faces?

Also, to the earlier comment about Accords not being included, they have been. Specifically, 2004 Accords, which is the car in question. Whether it's the driver or passenger side is irrelevant. Shrapnel in a car full of people is bad no matter where it's coming from.

 

[JTL]

Is that what you'd say to the families of the people who died because of these airbags? Or to the people who've had shrapnel rip into their faces?

Why are you being an ass? Why here and why now?
Go bitch to the dealership if it really bothers you that much if one accord gets a recall and the other doesn't. Nobody here on this forum personally denied you a new airbag inflator. The simple fact that you can't get the other airbag off the car shows that you are incompetent and shouldn't be screwing around with it. You've probably put the driver in more danger by ****ing around with the airbag instead of leaving it alone. It's going to be your fault if the accord gets hit and the airbag doesn't open!

Don't bring the families of the people who have died or suffered injuries into this. They already have a lot to deal with, and using thier loss as an example in your stupid thread is disrespectful.

I got both driver and passenger recalls done on my 2003 accord because honda KNOWS which cars are effected and which aren't. You don't need a new one because there is nothing wrong with the one you have!!!!

 

[AdamLAX]

The snide attitudes I'm getting here are EXACTLY the reason to bring up what people have been put through. These responses are turning a blind eye to a series of serious and preventable tragedies. I came here looking for a community that I assumed cares about cars. You can't care about cars if you don't care about safety.

Obviously this car isn't being driven with the airbags out. A person who doesn't understand how screws and LocTite work shouldn't be calling anybody incompetent -- and anybody calling somebody an ass here seems pretty hypocritical from what I've seen so far.

Let's be really clear here: Honda does NOT know what kind of airbags they put in these cars. This is what Honda corporate told me directly. They provided some amount of information to NHTSA (I believe per federal regulation), which is how they've processed the recalls. But that does NOT mean that Honda nor Takata have been appropriately forthcoming. That's why the recall keeps growing.

 

[jimijam]

If I buy you a bus pass, will you promise not to drive? :x

 

[jimijam]

OMG! I just read about someone choking to death on Cheerios......now I have to figure out what else to have for breakfast.

 

[JenerationX]

So.... the sedans are recalled, the coupes are not, and you think it's a good idea to rip the airbags out of the car? Have you looked at the coupe steering wheel and the sedan steering wheel and noticed they're a different shape? Has it occurred to you that the inflator might be a different part altogether?

 

[AdamLAX]

Of course it's a good idea to (safely) remove a part if you can get more information about it by doing so. Anybody who works on cars should know that. I haven't been looking at the wheels on both coupes and sedans, I'm just trying to sort this out with the one coupe that's currently in my garage (the sedan I mentioned is nowhere near us). And, yes, my first post points out that nobody seems to know just what kind of inflator is in there -- not me, and not even Honda. I've never said it is or isn't one of the dangerous ones. I'd like to know with some certainty, not trust a badly mismanaged recall.

Honda service campaign 14V-351 applies to driver airbags in certain 2001-2007 4-cylinder Accords without specifying coupe vs. sedan:
http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/acms/cs/jaxrs/download/doc/UCM468022/RCORRD-14V351-7510.pdf

Honda service campaign 14V-353 applies to passenger airbags in 2003-2005 Accords without specifying coupe vs. sedan:
http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/acms/cs/jaxrs/download/doc/UCM457414/RCDNN-14V353-7456.pdf
http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/acms/cs/jaxrs/download/doc/UCM461188/RCDNN-14V353-5650P.pdf

(Yes, the car has been kept in a high-humidity area.)

So ... where do you get it definitively that no coupes are recalled?

 

[Drew03Accord]

So ... where do you get it definitively that no coupes are recalled?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q="honda+accord+sedans"+takata+airbag+recall

Edit: The crazy thing is, you've spazzed out and now done more damage than if you had done the right research and left it alone. IF your car ever happens to be recalled, they'll probably charge you to extract the airbag, or refuse to touch it at all because you've mangled the screw.

 

[t-rd]

Seat belt is #1. I wouldn't go pulling out the air bags. That's paranoia to the extreme level. It's like checking the airplane yourself before you board the plane. Why not go check your brakes, brake fluid, tires, and suspension first? Those are components as the first line of defense against a crash. And safe driving of course. I've been driving for 20 years and I got hit by someone else once that's it, and I was stopped at the time. You need to watch out for "people failures," not a car component failure.

 

[greyhonda]

That Honda cannot tell you what air bag you have does not mean that they do not know that you don't have a recalled unit. It all depends on how their database is sorted. Assume that they've tracked the plants where the recalled units were installed, and on which days, and that they've recalled the VINs matching those plants and days.

A database administrator could probably go in and figure out which air bag you have, but they aren't going to do that for you.

If you don't trust that Honda/Takada have recalled all the truly bad units, you could have yours replaced on your own dime.

But you do now have a safety issue. You've been in there stripping and drilling screws, and who knows how well it'll hold if the air bag deploys. You obviously care about safety, you need to get this taken care of.

Ignore the trolls whose solution to safety issues is to man-up. Their fathers were complaining about shoulder belts back in the '70s.

 

[JenerationX]

Let's see..... I guess setting over 300 appointments myself in the past month and God knows how many recalls the parts manager signed off on and not a single one being a 7th gen Accord coupe with an open or completed Takata airbag recall isn't really definitive.

The question is whether or not there will be more Takata airbags and/or inflators that are found to be defective. They haven't exactly been forthcoming with the information. Honda is expecting final numbers and data to be released by June 15th.

In the meantime, taking your airbag OUT is certainly not any safer.

 

[t-rd]

Back when there was no air bag, I drove a 1990 Accord with that seat belt that slid over my shoulder automatically. I always pulled the waist belt over manually. Where the air bag should be is just a hunk of plastic for the horn. Now people FREAK OUT because the air bag might be defective.

Back in 1990, there was no cell phone. People went home to return calls on land lines and returned pages hours later on a pay phone. Now people FREAK OUT because they leave their cell phones at home.

I see kids driving completely lost without GPS. What if the satellites crashed?!

Go figure.

 

[jimijam]

Of course it's a good idea to (safely) remove a part if you can get more information about it by doing so.

'snot when it comes to airbags.

 

[wntndestrution]

Seems like an obvious questions, but have you typed the VIN into the Honda recall website?

Recall Information for Safety & Defects | Honda Owners Site

Also, blowing a hairdryer onto a screw with loctite for 30 seconds will loosen the loctite.