Thousands of Drivers May Have Counterfeit Air Bags

The Obama administration is preparing to warn car owners whose air bags have been replaced in the past three years that dangerous counterfeit bags may have been installed, according to auto industry officials who have been briefed by the government.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration alerted the industry in a series of telephone briefings Tuesday that tens of thousands of car owners may be driving vehicles with counterfeit air bags, industry officials said. NHTSA testing has shown some of the counterfeit bags don’t inflate or fail to inflate properly, they said. In at least one case, a counterfeit bag fired shards of plastic and other projectiles on impact, they said.

The officials requested that their names not be used because NHTSA had asked them not to speak publicly about the problem until after an announcement scheduled for Wednesday.

NHTSA will ask car owners to check a government website, Safercar.gov, or call their manufacturer or local dealership to learn if their vehicle model is among those for which counterfeit air bags have been made, officials said.

No deaths or injuries have been tied to the counterfeit bags, but it’s unclear whether police accident investigators would be able to identify a counterfeit bag from a genuine one, officials said.

The agency has compiled a draft list of dozens of vehicle makes and models for which counterfeit air bags maybe available. NHTSA cautions at the top of the draft that the agency “expects this list to evolve over time.”

If the car is on the list and has had its air bags replaced during the past three years by a repair shop other than an auto dealership, owners will be asked to bring the vehicle into a dealership to determine whether the replaced air bags are counterfeit. Fees for checking out air bags could run $100 or more, industry officials said. Some types of cars have as many as eight air bags.

The counterfeit bags typically have been made to look like air bags made by automakers and usually include a manufacturer’s logo. Government investigators believe many of the bags come from China, an industry official said.