Honda Cars Philippines, Inc. Announces Voluntary Recall

April 11, 2013 – Honda Cars Philippines, Inc. (HCPI) announces a voluntary recall of some 9,743 units of the Honda Civic year models 2001 to 2002 and CR-V year model 2002 sold in the Philippines for the period of 2001 to 2002 due to faulty inflation device of the front passenger airbag.

Findings show that during manufacturing process, the automatic rejection system machine failed to detect defective Airbag Inflators with low density propellants.  Subsequently, these defective inflation devices were installed in these vehicles. As a result, upon airbag deployment, the pressure increases excessively and might cause the inflator case to rapture. 

The announcement is part of a global recall of vehicles following a Honda Motor report involving faulty front passenger airbags. An estimated total of 1,142,000 of various Honda vehicles are affected by this recall. The affected inflator will be replaced for all affected vehicles.

There has been no known case of abnormal deployment of passenger airbag, no crashes and/or injuries were reported related to this issue. 

Honda Civic and CR-V units with the following frame (VIN) numbers are included in the safety measure:

HCPI is carrying out a proactive market action through the conduct of a Voluntary Safety Recall in accordance to Honda’s own standard even if there is no specific law in the Philippines that requires such an action. Honda still opts to do the recall as a matter of policy on worldwide customer satisfaction when it comes to quality of the product and safety of customers which are the top priorities.

HCPI will replace, free of charge, the inflator of the affected Honda models. HCPI will inform the owners of these affected vehicles to bring their unit to an authorized Honda dealer for part replacement.

Concerned customers and/or owners shall be notified through phone by Honda dealers and Letters of Notice will be sent starting April 12, 2013. Honda is announcing this safety recall to encourage owners of all affected vehicles to take their vehicles to an authorized dealer as soon as they receive notification of this recall from Honda. To conduct the voluntary safety recall in an orderly manner, customers are requested to call their respective dealers for service appointment or call the Honda Hotline 1-800-1000-HONDA (46632) and (02) 8 857-7240 or email at customer_relations@hondaphil.com, or may also visit Honda Cars Philippines, Inc.’s website www.hondaphil.com for inquiries and details of scheduling.

In the event that the owners have already sold their units, they shall be requested to inform the dealership immediately so as to inform the transferee of this recall campaign. Also, the frame numbers of affected vehicles shall be posted in the website.

Replacement of affected part will take about one (1) hour and will be carried out in all 28 authorized dealers and 3 service centers nationwide.  Repair service of affected vehicles will sequentially start from April 22, 2013.

Owners of Honda Jazz, City, Civic, Accord, CR-V and HR-V models sold and distributed by Honda Cars Philippines, Inc. are not affected and thus have no reason to worry since the airbags of these models were assembled during other periods.

Click here to know if your Honda vehicle is affected.