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Honda Expands Takata Airbag Recall To 5.4M Units In The US

While Honda already announced plans to take its front driver's side Takata airbag inflator recall nationwide, the automaker has now officially reported on the number of affected vehicles and the specific models in need of repair. The expanded campaign covers an estimated 5.4 million units across the US, including those already being fixed under the previous regional actions. That number is an expansion of the five million units initially reported by NHTSA. The affected models under the nationwide recall are the 2001-2007 Accord with a four-cylinder engine, 2001-2002 Accord V6, 2001-2005 Civic, 2002-2006 CR-V, 2003-2011 Element, 2002-2004 Odyssey, 2003-2007 Pilot, 2006 Ridegline, 2003-2006 Acura MDX, 2002-2003 TL and 2002 CL. For customers who expressed concern about their vehicle's safety, Honda had already been replacing the inflators nationwide. It's possible for the inflators in these vehicles to rupture when inflating the airbag, spraying metal fragments at occupants. This problem has been blamed for at least five deaths worldwide and at least 139 reported injuries. In its statement, Honda said that it worked with Takata to test the recalled inflators in the original high-humidity recall regions, and there were no abnormal deployments in these evaluations. Honda will begin notifying owners by "over time," according to its statement. Priority will be put on the geographic areas with the highest risk of ruptures. Those in the original recall region were contacted in September. Earlier in December, Honda partnered with Autoliv to supply the automaker with replacement inflators for this campaign. Autoliv predicted it would take six months for deliveries to start. Takata also increased its production of substitute components. Scroll down to read the company's announcement of this nationwide expansion. Statement by American Honda Regarding National Safety Improvement Campaign: Driver's Front Airbag Inflator Supplied by Takata Dec 8, 2014 - TORRANCE, Calif. Honda will voluntarily expand a regional Safety Improvement Campaign initiated in June 2014 (NHTSA No. 14V-351) into a national Safety Improvement Campaign affecting certain 2001 through 2011 Honda and Acura vehicles in the United States to replace the driver frontal airbag inflator, free of charge. Honda is expanding this Safety Improvement Campaign to address concerns raised by its customers whose vehicles were not included in the regional campaign.

Acura built just 91 examples of the ILX last month, here's why

The short life of the Acura ILX has been vexed by one glaringly odd standard equipment choice, mediocre reviews, getting outsold by its competition as it posted slower-than-projected sales and a pledge by Honda to upgrade its supposedly upgraded offering. Therefore, when Automotive News reports that just 91 of the Civic-based Acura sedans were manufactured last month - after a string of production months in double-digits - it would be easy to press the button for the alarm bells.
But that would be hasty, because it is actually the 2013 Honda Civic that is crimping the production pipeline of the ILX. The vastly higher sales numbers of the Honda meant that all three North American plants that produce it needed to crank up output to satisfy dealer inventory needs, including the Greenburg, Indiana plant that makes both the Civic and the ILX. As the classic guns-vs-butter Economy 101 lesson taught us - in which making more of one necessarily means making less of the other - well, the Civic is the gun.
Honda prepared for this eventuality by cranking out the Acuras while it got ready for Civic production. The ILX has held steady at about 500 units shy of company projections every month, and the current inventory represents about 90 days worth of sales. That makes Greenburg's ostensibly low numbers in line with the realities of the ILX, and the situation probably won't change much as Acura gets ready for the improved 2014 ILX.

Daily Driver: 2015 Acura TLX

Daily Driver videos are micro-reviews of vehicles in the Autoblog press fleet, reviewed by the staffers who drive them every day. Today's Daily Driver features the 2015 Acura TLX, reviewed by Seyth Miersma. You can watch the video above or read a transcript below. Watch more Autoblog videos at /videos. Show full video transcript text Hey all, this is Seyth with Autoblog and I'm here in the 2015 Acura TLX. Right off the bat I can tell that the TLX doesn't feel anything like as sporting a sedan as the TL it replaced, at least not in the versions that I last drove, which admittedly were TL's with V6 power and the SH all wheel drive. This TLX has got a 2.4-liter, four-cylinder engine, it's making 206 horsepower, and 182 pound-feet of torque, and it is connected up to a eight-speed, dual-clutch transmission. As you can tell by the power output this isn't an impressively fast car. It weighs about 3,500 pounds so it's lugging around some weight. At the same time the eight-speed transmission is really responsive especially as you go through the selectable gear programs, you can make the throttle response pretty good. It is a throttle by wire as well and I haven't noticed any weirdness there, it feels very linear, and like I said, when I turned the system into the sport plus mode the gas pedal becomes really responsive. The exhaust note is muted, you really have to get up over 5,000 rpm before you start feeling like the engine is really pushing you. One of the things that struck me first about this Acura when I got in it was how quiet it was at speed. I feel like in the luxury segment, Acuras have historically done a little bit better for being sportier versions of cars in their segment and not necessarily more refined, but that seems to have been changing a lot on the last few generations of Acura. What it lacks in athletic ability it makes up for in composure. I'm on a pretty good right now, there are plenty of bad ones around where I live so this suspension soaks up a lot of the impacts and it dampens the sound of them as well too. Acura is clearly going after a much more mainstream customer these days and I think a car like this could be very attractive, more attractive than ever for a shopper of something like a Lexus ES. One feature I did play around with was Acura's active lane keep assist which works actually by moving the steering wheel to a degree to keep you centered in your lane if your hands are off the wheel.