During our investigation, we examined more than 160 complaints from consumers about their airbags failing to deploy in serious accidents. Those complaints involved the airbags in vehicles made by eight different automakers. We contacted each of those car makers and asked them to respond to the following questions.
Tony Pearson, manager of Nissan Motor Company's Technologies, responded for the company.
1). What's your message to consumers who have safety concerns with the airbags in one of your vehicles?
Pearson: We take safety very seriously and if consumers have questions about the safety of their vehicle, they can call our Consumer Affairs Department (1-800-647-7261) for answers.
Our message on safety is this: Nissan Motor Company tries to build safe vehicles for every customer out there. We do a lot of research and our vehicles have the best systems with the best technology that is on the market today. Our vehicles are made with today's state-of-the-art technology.
2). What should consumers do if their airbags fail to deploy during an accident in one of your vehicles?
Pearson: I would ask consumers to contact Nissan's Consumer Affairs Department. We don't send someone out to investigate every accident where an airbag doesn't deploy, but if someone calls our consumer affairs department and says 'my airbag should have deployed,' I think we'd send someone out to investigate. They can also report any problems to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). That's how some recalls get started.
The main thing we tell consumers is that just because there's an airbag in your vehicle, it's not going to go off in every collision. There are sophisticated computers inside that system -- ones that measure a variety of issue and factors at the moment of impact -- and those determine whether the airbag is going to deploy. Air bags are also a supplemental restraint system; seat belts are the primary system and that's why consumers should always wear their seat belts.
3). Does your company send someone out to investigate an accident if an airbag fails to deploy in one of your vehicles?
Pearson: As stated above, if someone calls our consumer affairs department and says 'my airbag should have deployed,' I think we'd send someone out to investigate. It would be someone in our engineering group. And we would let customers know our findings.
4). Has your company recalled any vehicles because of problems with the airbags failing to deploy in an accident? If so, which vehicles -- year, make, model?
Pearson: I'm not aware of any, but you can check NHTSA's Web site for recalls.
ConsumerAffairs.com discovered that Nissan voluntarily recalled 27,383 of its model-year 2002 Exterras and 37,177 of its 2002 model-year Altimas because "the electrical connector for the driver side airbag may come loosethe supplemental warning light will flash intermittentlyand the driver side airbag will not deploy" in an accident.
We also learned that Nissan discovered problems with one of the airbag sensors on approximately 116,500 of its 2002 model-year Altimas, which could prevent the system from operating as expected in high speed crashes. Nissan voluntarily replaced those sensors in customers' vehicles.
