Commissioner General of the Department of Motor Traffic (DMT) Nishantha Anuruddha Weerasinghe said that three leading car import agents in Sri Lanka have already started recalling certain vehicle models to fix faulty airbags following the death of a Sri Lankan scientist recently.
It has been revealed that a scientist died when a metal shard of the airbag that had been activated caused grievous injuries to him when his car collided with the concrete post of a road barrier in Gonapola, Horana recently.
He further said that discussions are underway with all other dealers to rectify the faulty airbag issue.
Accordingly, the Commissioner General of Motor Traffic said that 47 categories of vehicle models have been identified with such faulty airbags, and measures have been taken to recall those vehicles from the owners, after obtaining information from the local vehicle dealers regarding the vehicle owners.
This includes 33 models under nine categories from Honda, eight models under three categories from Mitsubishi, and six models from Toyota.
Local car dealers have published a newspaper advertisement recalling the following vehicle models:Civic :ES4/ES8/FD1/FD4/FB1, CRV:RD1/RD5/RE2/ RE3/RE4,Accord:CM5/ CL5/CL7/CF8/CF9,Fit/ Jazz GP1/GP2/GP3 /GP4/GE6/ GD1/GD8/GD6,
City:GM2/ 3A3,Insight:ZE2/ZE3, Stream: RN3,Integra: DC2,Odyssey: RA3,Corolla 141 : ZRE 141R- AE## / ZZE141R- AE# / CE140R- AEH#A, Yaris : NCP92R-BE### / NCP42R- BE## / NCP90R- BE##.
The dealers warned that non-compliance to the above recall may result in injury to the driver and the front passenger if airbags are deployed in the event of a collision.