NHTSA Investigation DP11001

Frontal Air Bag Non-deployment

The Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) received a defect petition requesting that it open an investigation of model year (MY) 2008 Toyota Corolla vehicles for the failure of the frontal air bags to deploy during an alleged serious crash. The petitioner alleges that the frontal air bags in their MY 2008 Corolla failed to deploy during a 55-mph frontal impact with a large animal (a deer).The petitioner also filed a complaint with the agency (see ODI 10327470 for further details of the incident and the petition submitted to the agency).ODI has reviewed the petition, assessed consumer complaints on the MY 2008 Toyota Corolla and similar vehicles, analyzed statistics derived from NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and its National Automotive Sampling System (NASS), and evaluated crash tests of the subject vehicles.Based on its review, ODI does not believe that a safety-related defect trend currently exists for air bag non-deployment in the subject vehicles.Therefore, in view of the need to allocate and prioritize NHTSA's limited resources to accomplish the agency's safety mission, the petition is denied.However, the agency will continue to monitor this event and will take further action if warranted by changing future circumstances.For more information, see the Federal Register notice in the DP11-001 file (www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/defects).

An investigation is a separate record from a recall and from a manufacturer communication. A manufacturer campaign to repair a safety defect or a failure to meet a federal safety standard.