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Honda, Hyundai and Kia get best word-of-mouth recommendations in US

Forget advertising, incentives and, yes, even our excellently crafted vehicle reviews, sometimes the best way for automakers to sell cars is still good ol' fashioned word of mouth. In an attempt to measure this "word of mouth" power, The Boston Consulting Group, a management consulting firm, has created a new study called the Brand Advocacy Index (BAI). The index takes a look at how various industries perform from person to person. Those industries include automotive, smartphones, grocery, mobile telecommunications and banking.
The study polled more than 32,000 individuals across Europe and in the US to come up with the top 55 brands in these various industries. On the automotive side of things, the top brands in the US were Honda, Hyundai and Kia, all tied at 63 percent. On a global scale, Volkswagen and Toyota scored the highest with a 65-percent BAI rating (both in France). The average BAI for auto industry players tallied 50 percent.
As for companies in other industries, Apple's iPhone was the index's top-rated smartphone, Trader Joe's was the highest recommended grocery store, Virgin was sat atop the mobile telecom industry and USAA was the top retail bank. Scroll down for the full press release on the new study.

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.

It turns out Takata isn't willing to expand airbag recall nationally after all

There have been "approximately 0.000006 failures per air bag deployment, which is far below the failure rate" of most recalls, Takata claims. Takata has seemingly made an about face following reports that it would expand its regional airbag recall into a nationwide repair effort, issuing a scathing, four-page letter rebutting allegations by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and its Office of Defects while simultaneously attacking the government's handling of the situation. The Japanese supplier claims in its letter that the "currently available, reliable information does not support a nationwide determination of a safety defect," arguing that there were "approximately 0.000006 failures per air bag deployment, which is far below the failure rate in the vast majority of the thousands of recalls," The Detroit News reports. Takata then breaks down the two specific incidents mentioned in NHTSA's original recall request letter, a 2005 Honda Accord and 2007 Ford Mustang. Referencing the two crashes, NHTSA Administrator David Friedman said last month "one incident is an anomaly, but two are a trend." The supplier, though, argues the Honda issue is already being covered by that company's soon-to-be-national recall (more on that in a moment). The company then goes on to point out that neither Takata nor NHTSA has been able to analyze the Mustang's airbag inflator, saying that such a lack of examination meant there was "no way to ascertain what actually occurred during the incident, whether any inflator ruptured, and whether any inflator rupture that may have occurred was related to the incidents that led to the current regional campaigns." Takata alleges that NHTSA has disobeyed its own statutes. Takata also took the opportunity to take a few swipes at NHTSA's behavior during the airbag scandal, saying it was "very surprised to receive" a recall request letter because the ODI had yet to even receive the company's responses to a pair of special orders. It also alleged that NHTSA was disobeying its own statute, which says only manufacturers of vehicles and replacement equipment can "decide in good faith whether their products contain a safety related defect," and that the government can only "issue an initial decision that a safety-related defect exists" to those same entities.