NHTSA Investigation PE14004

Inadvertent Side Air Bag Deployment

ODI has identified 293 incidents of alleged inadvertent deployment of the side air bags in model year (MY) 2008 Honda Accord 4-door vehicles.This total represents all incidents reported to both ODI and Honda including those from Honda's warranty system (note: the total shown above eliminates all duplicative reports to ODI and Honda).This investigation has revealed that when the driver or front passenger door is shut, the driver-side or passenger-side side curtain air bag can deploy, and in some cases, the side seat-mounted torso air bag can deploy as well.Fourteen people allegedly suffered injuries caused by the deploying air bags.In June 2008, near the end of MY 2008 Accord 4-door production, Honda changed the crash parameter for door closing force, which is embedded in the electronic control unit's software code, in order to reduce the incidents of the inadvertent side air bag deployments.More specifically, the software design change was made on June 5, 2008 for the Accords built in the U.S. and on June 30, 2008 for those built in Japan.ODI found the number of the inadvertent deployment incidents declined significantly for the vehicles with the new crash parameter setting, i.e., the late-built MY 2008 vehicles and all MY 2009 vehicles.Honda reported the Accord 2-door model utilizes a different software/crash parameter than the subject 4-door model.This Preliminary Evaluation has been upgraded to an Engineering Analysis (EA14-004) to determine, among other things, the risk of air bag deployment injuries to vehicle users in vulnerable positions.The ODI reports cited above can be reviewed online at http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/owners/SearchNHTSAID under the following identification numbers: 10232206, 10235294, 10255323, 10268158, 10268191, 10269514, 10276755, 10279446, 10280675, 10308292, 10319979, 10342520, 10353536, 10408925, 10436506, 10447151, 10458732, 10468196, 10468200, 10493407, 10494971, 10522291, 10524389, 10543092, 10544473, 10545258, 10547591, 10554073, 10563629, 10565311, 10565423, 10576518, 10579241, 10584501, 10585442, 10606937, 10608973.

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.