Fiat Chrysler Automobiles have recently recalled almost 90,000 of their Dodge Challengers. This was because of the ongoing dispute of Japanese airbag supplier Takata. According to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there are about 88,346 cars that have been affected by the defected airbags. Posted on the website of the NHTSA, the agency said that the Challengers being recalled are those with model years from 2008 to 2010 and were manufactured from September of 2007 to October of 2010. The airbags consisted a defect relating to the inflators that can be found in the airbag systems which are malfunctioning due to changing moisture levels. This could cause the inflators of the airbags to rupture when the safety devices are inflated upon a car crash, which would send sharp metal fragments into the interior of the vehicle. The shrapnel could possible lead to burns, bruises and abrasions on the driver and passengers, and there are five reported deaths caused by the problem from within the United States, along with more than 100 reported injuries.
The Dodge Challengers did not appear on parent company FCA’s original list of Takata airbag-equipped vehicles which was submitted to NHTSA in May. newly added Challengers did not appear on parent company FCA’s original list of Takata airbag–equipped vehicles, submitted to NHTSA in May but they were discovered in a audit on the 6th of July. This controversy even reached its political heights when Senator Richard Blumenthal made a request to set up a victim’s compensation fund to distribute monetary awards to the families of those injured or killed by the defective airbags. However, Takata blatantly denied the request of the U.S Senator and in response to the denial, Blumenthal called Takata’s decision “a callous misjudgment,” Automotive News reports.
