In a statement, NHTSA indicated that both ARC and automakers are responsible for recalls and that it can seek a recall from a parts maker that supplies multiple automakers. The agency’s documents show that the inflators date from at least the 2002 model year to January 2018, when ARC installed equipment on its manufacturing lines that could detect potential safety problems. NHTSA tentatively concluded, after an investigation that has lasted for eight years, that the inflators are defective. The explosions, which first occurred in 2009, have continued as recently as this year. NHTSA argues that the recall is justified because two people have been killed in the United States and Canada and at least seven others have been injured by ARC’s inflators. But ARC is refusing to do so, setting up a possible court fight with the agency. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is demanding that the manufacturer, ARC Automotive of Knoxville, Tennessee, recall 67 million inflators that could explode with such force as to blow apart a metal canister and expel shrapnel. And because of a dispute between federal safety regulators and an airbag parts manufacturer, they aren’t likely to find out anytime soon.
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