Defective Airbags: Major Recall in Europe for Citroën C3 and DS3

A real one iceberg with which car manufacturers have had to live for well over a decade on all world marketsi, dodging risks with colossal recall operations. The latest consequence in chronological order of the Takata scandalwhich broke out way back in 2008, is the maxi-campaign launched by Stellantis and which affects a total of 530,000 vehicles Citroën C3 e DS3 sold between 2009 and 2019 in Europe and North Africa, of which 246,000 in France. The emergency is naturally in the replacement of the airbags produced by the Japanese company Takata and which still equip more than 50.000 C3 e DS3 in Italiawhile over 29,000 specimens have already been removed from a danger deemed real, and not just potential, so much so that it is recommended the absolute immobilization of the car until repair. In France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, a total of 128,000 vehicles are missing.

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The iceberg that companies in the sector are still struggling to live with today, surprisingly even after many years, is the one linked to lack of adequate safety procedures of the devices produced by the Takataa company declared bankruptcy in 2017 with over $8 billion in debt, but previously a world leader in the supply of airbags. As it turned out, objectively dangerous, namely burdened by their use as an explosive trigger for the inflation of the ammonium nitrateby its extremely nature sensitive to temperature changes and humidityso much to do explode the capsule which contains it by projecting metal fragments towards the body and face of the driver and passenger. According to the federal highway safety authority NHTSA, they are in the United States the defect would have caused the death of 27 people and the more than 400 injuredwhile shared estimates for the rest of the world report 35 more victims. The NHTSA also indicates in addition 45 million airbags replaced only on the US marketwith the Japanese authorities tend to indicate in a world total close to 100 millioninevitably destined to rise. The Stellantis maxi recall is in fact only the latest to be added to a huge list which in the last few months has also hosted Volkswagen, Toyota, Nissan, BMW with over 1.7 million vehicles recalled in China and the United States, but also Fordwith its most recent campaign involving around 800 thousand cars.