Takata air bag recall to grow by 35 million to 40 million

WASHINGTON — Takata will recall another 35 million to 40 million air bag inflators, a stunning increase that will more than double what is already the largest automotive recall in American history, the federal government announced Wednesday.

The recall expansion would bring to as many as 69 million the total number of inflators to be replaced, a gargantuan task that the government predicts will take until the end of 2019 to complete.

Most of the expansion is for front passenger air bags that were not part of previous recalls, said Mark Rosekind, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Air bag manufacturers have had trouble making enough replacement inflators, and automakers have had difficulty finding owners and persuading them to get cars repaired.

Takata uses the chemical ammonium nitrate to create an explosion that inflates air bags in a crash.

The expanded recall covers all front air bags that do not have a chemical drying agent known as a desiccant.

The government and an independent expert it hired reviewed three independent investigations and confirmed findings that the problem is caused by time, airborne moisture and temperature fluctuations that can degrade the ammonium nitrate, the agency said.

Takata, which had resisted recalls before being fined last year by the safety agency, said it knows of no ruptures in the batch of inflators that have been added to the recalls, nor does it know of any new data or scientific analysis “that suggests any substantial risk with respect to such vehicles.”

Even without the expansion, it would have taken until the end of 2017 for enough replacement parts to be manufactured, said Scott Upham, CEO of Valient Market Research in Philadelphia, which tracks air bag sales.