300,000 New Zealand Cars Are Being Recalled Over Faulty Airbags

The government website with data on every make and model affected by a massive faulty airbag recall has crashed due to intense online traffic.

Up to 300,000 vehicles have been recalled because of malfunctioning airbags that either do not inflate or fire out pieces of metal when inflated in an accident - injuring people and even causing death.

This morning owners of affected makes were being told to contact their local dealer or manufacturer to see if their car was affected.

The makes included BMW, Ford, Honda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Mazda and Toyota.

Motor Industry Association head David Crawford told the Herald last night that there had been a number of accidents overseas in which people had been injured or killed because of the faulty airbags, manufactured by Japanese company Takata.

The Government publishes recall information on its recalls.govt.nz website, which is run by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the NZ Transport Agency, among others.

However, the website has been down since last night.

A spokeswoman initially said the website was subject to scheduled maintenance.

However, she later confirmed the unexpected volume of car owners seeking information overwhelmed the system.

Technicians were working to restore the website and publish the list.

The Herald has received a steady stream of emails form readers concerned about whether their vehicles have been affected.

A full list of makes, models and years affected is being sought.

The faulty airbags had meant that in an accident, they had either failed to inflate fully or fired out bits of metal when inflated.

Crawford said it was important to note that there had been no deaths or injuries related to the airbags in New Zealand or Australia.

"The airbag inflators - there have been less than 200 that have been faulty in 60 million vehicles, so it's a very low percentage.

"The best advice that we can give is that the cars are safe to continue to drive. But they're not totally free from risk.

"So the manufacturers have said because a few have been faulty and we can't tell which ones are faulty and which ones are not, then all of them get replaced.

"And because it affects so many vehicles, it's going to take a little while, logistically, to work through.''

Crawford said the faulty airbags had been reported in countries and places which were very hot and humid for long months - meaning there appeared to be an association with that factor and something going wrong with the Takata airbags.

The NZ Transport Agency says faulty airbags have been found in vehicles in the Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Subaru, Isuzu, GM, Ford, Toyota, Ferrari, Chrysler, Mitsubishi and Daihatsu ranges.

The 300,000 vehicles being recalled in New Zealand are made up of both new and imported vehicles aged up to 13 years old.

- NZ Herald