Subaru Australia, Honda Australia and Mazda Australia are confident of meeting their 100% Takata airbag recall compliance deadline of December 31, 2020.
All three carmakers are tracking well to meet the total recall mandate set by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).
Subaru Australia tells AutoTalk it sits with a firm 60% completion rate of 168,000 vehicles with two and a half years to go.
These “include a number of like-for-like inflators (no longer being used), which will [continue to] subsequently need replacing,” corporate affairs director David Rowley says.
OEMs continue dedicating significant resources to Australia’s northern regions with highly-humid climate, making inflators more susceptible to rupturing.
Rowley says Subaru has sent its engineering teams far and wide, even off-shore.
“We are also focusing our remote and rural replacement program in these northern, humid regions, including sending some of our own internal technicians as far afield as Christmas Island and Torres Strait Islands, including Thursday and the Badu Islands; and Groote Eylandt,” he explains.
Subaru’s “Rural and Remote Taskforce” has replaced Takata airbag modules on Bathurst, Lord Howe, Fraser and Norfolk islands. The taskforce has also been to some of Australia’s most remote towns, including Charleville and Queensland and Nhulunbuy on the Northern Territory’s north-east tip.
“The Subaru dealer network is completely engaged with the task of rectification of all affected Subaru vehicles ASAP,” Rowley adds. “We obviously closely monitor completion rates on weekly basis and are in constant communication with the network on this topic.”
Honda Australia group public relations manager Neil McDonald says it too has a solid recall completion rate on its books, thanks to solid efforts from the dealer network.
“Honda has 107 dealers nationally and all have been very focused in getting repairs done,” McDonald explains.”Some have instituted specific Takata repair days, others have opened on weekends to support customers.”
“Dealers not only have the Takata campaign to deal with, but must also remain focused on their customers and sales and servicing responsibilities,” he says.
McDonald says Honda Australia’s dealerships have replaced 90.6% of all Takata inflators, to the tune of 598,834 individual components out of a total 661,115.
“Their support has been instrumental in Honda achieving such a high completion rate,” he says. “At the peak, dealers were completing up to 7000 airbag repairs a week, with an average at one point of 3200 a week.”
Honda has reached out with over 1.4 million forms of communication, and continues with special priority to humid, remote communities.
“In the case of Thursday Island (800km north of Cairns) we sent two technicians to the town to complete repairs,” McDonald says.
“The ‘outback outreach’ campaign has focused on remote communities and assisted with engaging local media to help highlight that Honda technicians are in town.”
Despite the very high completion rate, McDonald says Honda is also considering customers of every creed to ensure nobody goes unnoticed.
“We’re now focusing on non-English language publications to get the Takata message across, as we know there are a proportion of Honda owners from non-English backgrounds, where English may not be the first language in the household,” McDonald says.
“If the remaining customers act and have their vehicles repaired, we are confident of our position by the December 31, 2020 deadline.”
Mazda Australia says it’s optimistic of a full recall compliance, with senior public relations manager Sonia Singh confirming an 87.3% completion rate.
“We are doing everything we can to reach 100% as soon as possible,” Singh says, with supply of replacement airbag modules in dealerships.
“We have full stock for replacements and have made this our dealers’ top priority, taking part in the shared paid campaign, and we are also doing door-knocking.”
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