Honda recalls 750,000 vehicles due to airbag seat sensor problem

Enlarge / The passenger airbag in some new Hondas and Acuras is very advanced and designed to prevent brain injuries. But a faulty sensor in the seat of some cars means it might deploy when it's not supposed to. (credit: Honda)

Honda is recalling more than 750,000 vehicles manufactured between 2020 and 2022. Honda says that a weight sensor, which is meant to disable the passenger airbags if the seat is occupied by a child or child seat, might not work properly, allowing the airbags to deploy during a crash.

Exposure to humidity can cause a capacitor in the sensor to crack and leak, making it inoperable. The problem has been traced to a change in the base material for the sensor's printed circuit board—Honda's tier 1 supplier made the change when a natural disaster disrupted production at the tier 2 supplier that normally provided the base material. The changed circuit board was not properly verified and "could allow additional strain to the printed circuit board that can lead to a capacitor cracking and an internal short circuit."

A warranty claim in August 2020 was Honda's first inkling that it had a problem. Initial investigations turned up little, but the automaker kept receiving warranty claims and in January 2024 decided to issue a recall. In total it says it has had 3,834 warranty claims for this issue between June 2020 and January 2024.