When it installed Takata’s airbags, it said in a statement, “Honda reasonably believed,<br />based on extensive test results provided by Takata, that they were safe.”<br />Honda said it believed it reacted “promptly and appropriately” in handling known airbag defects.<br />At least four automakers knew for years that Takata’s airbags were dangerous and could rupture violently<br />but continued to use those airbags in their vehicles to save on costs, lawyers representing victims of the defect asserted in a court document filed on Monday.<br />But the fresh allegations against Ford, Honda, Nissan<br />and Toyota, made as part of a class-action lawsuit in Florida and based on company documents, point to a far deeper involvement by automakers that used Takata’s defective airbags for years.<br />Toyota used Takata’s airbags “primarily” for cost reasons, even though the automaker had “large quality concerns” about Takata<br />and considered the supplier’s quality performance “unacceptable,” the filing said.<br />The filing by the plaintiffs says emails and internal documents turned over by Honda show<br />that in 1999 and 2000, the automaker was intimately involved in developing a problematic propellant, or explosive, used in Takata’s airbags.<br />Randi Johnston, 26, of Farmington, Utah — who was injured in September 2015 when the airbag in her 2003 Honda Civic ruptured<br />and metal shards struck her throat — attended the hearing and said afterward that she was shocked by the judge’s decision.<br />Honda chose Takata’s airbags because of their relative “inexpensiveness,” the filing quoted Honda documents as saying.
