Federal officials are issuing an urgent warning to used-car owners across the country after discovering potentially deadly replacement airbags installed in vehicles following previous crashes.<\/p>\n
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says eight drivers were killed and two others seriously injured because the airbags deployed improperly. Officials say the victims likely would have survived otherwise.<\/p>\n
The warning applies to people shopping for used cars and to anyone currently driving one, especially if it’s a vehicle previously involved in a crash.<\/p>\n
Federal investigators say the airbags are equipped with substandard inflators that can violently rupture when deployed, sending metal fragments into the driver.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s happening, though, is that these are substandard inflators. And when they\u2019re in a crash, even a minor crash, they\u2019re deploying and overpressuring and shooting shrapnel to the face and chest of consumers or the drivers,\u201d said Jonathan Morrison, NHTSA administrator.<\/p>\n
The airbags have been linked to a Chinese manufacturer known as DTN. On its own website, DTN states its products are not permitted to be sold in the United States.<\/p>\n
Despite that, investigators say the illegal airbags are making their way into American vehicles, most often after a previous crash, when the original airbag is replaced with a cheaper, unauthorized part.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomehow these inflators are being imported into the United States and they\u2019re being attached to airbag modules, which are being sold, we think, through online marketplaces,\u201d Morrison said.<\/p>\n
One of the biggest dangers, investigators say, is that drivers often have no way of knowing what type of airbag is installed in their car.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing worse than a piece of equipment that\u2019s designed to save your life in serious crashes, deploying and potentially killing you in minor crashes that you should walk away from,\u201d Morrison said.<\/p>\n
NHTSA is urging anyone who owns a used vehicle that was previously in a crash \u2014 especially one with a salvage or rebuilt title \u2014 to have it inspected immediately. If a DTN airbag is found, officials say the car should not be driven until the airbag is replaced with one that meets U.S. safety standards.<\/p>\n
Drivers can report suspected illegal airbags directly to NHTSA. The agency also recommends getting a vehicle history report, such as through Carfax, before buying any used car.<\/p>\n
News 4 reached out to the Chinese company for comment and has not received a response. Federal officials stress this is an urgent vehicle-safety issue and say buyers should never skip a safety inspection when purchasing a used vehicle.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC New York. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC New York journalist edited the article for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Federal officials are issuing an urgent warning to used-car owners across the country after discovering potentially deadly replacement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[36817,9,11,10],"class_list":["post-121633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-better-get-baquero","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}