Takata airbag recall: 333,000 Holdens affected

Most car manufacturers have now confirmed which of their vehicles are affected by potentially lethal Takata airbags at the centre of Australia’s first compulsory safety recall, but with three significant exclusions: Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Tesla.

More than 100 million vehicles are affected by the global recall, including a total of about four million in Australia, where one of at least 23 deaths has been attributed to exploding airbag inflators.

Two days after the Australian government announced the compulsory recall, Skoda, Ford, Land Rover, Jaguar and Holden have now identified which of their vehicles are affected.

Is your car affected by the deadly Takata airbag recall?

Ford today confirmed around 108,000 of its vehicles have faulty airbags that require fixing, including about 70,000 Ford Ranger utes.

Holden confirmed around 333,000 of its cars will be recalled, including the Holden Astra, Trax, Barina and Cruze, but the Commodore is safe. For the full list of makes, models and years of manufacture go to our airbag recall vehicle list page.

Skoda is looking at around 17,000 vehicles, the majority of them Octavia, while Jaguar and Land Rover together also have around 17,000 vehicles that need new airbags.

None of these five brands have vehicles fitted with highly dangerous 'alpha' airbags, which have a 50 per cent chance of blasting metal shrapnel at vehicle occupants if they are activated.

The ACCC has advised owners of the 20,000-plus vehicles equipped locally with Alpha airbags to stop driving them immediately.

Mercedes-Benz hopes to have details of its affected vehicles by mid-March and the number is understood to be around 50,000 vehicles.

A spokesperson for brand told motoring.com.au it was confident no urgent alpha airbags were installed in its cars.

However, Audi and Tesla are also yet to identify their affected vehicles, announce how many are involved or confirm whether any of their vehicles have alpha airbags.

FAQ: Takata airbag recall

Like all car brands, Audi and Tesla will be compelled to announce compulsory Takata recall timetables by April and individual VIN numbers by July, or face million-dollar fines from the ACCC.

Despite dragging its feet when the airbag recall was voluntary, GM Holden director of communications Anna Betts told motoring.com.au that "We are currently developing our plan in response to the recall notice and we are working closely with the government and the ACCC on our response."

Arch-rival Ford is also taking the national recall seriously.

"We’re committed to addressing potential issues and responding to our customers," said Ford Australia communications and public affairs director Martin Gunsberg, after releasing the list of affected vehicles.

Meantime, it's been reported that around 50,000 Audis are affected by the potentially deadly airbags in Australia.

However, an Audi spokesperson refused to comment on when the company will release information on which of its vehicles are affected, nor if any of its customers are in immediate danger due to the fitment of alpha airbags.

"Our customers are our first priority and, as a result of the Australian government's mandatory recall of certain vehicles with frontal Takata airbag inflators announced earlier this week, we will be conducting a staged recall of the affected Audi vehicles over the next three years," reads an Audi Australia statement.

"We will contact owners to let them know when they should visit a dealer to have their Takata airbag inflator replaced."

Tesla is also yet to confirm which of its models will be affected, but the recall is likely to include only a relatively small number of Tesla Model S vehicles.

"We’re committed to protecting the safety of our customers and are offering our full cooperation to ACCC to address those Tesla vehicles that are affected by Takata recall," said Tesla Australia.

"Please note that customers do not need to be concerned about Takata inflators before they receive a recall notice from Tesla. Furthermore, inflators only become defective with age, and the recall schedule ensures that customers will have sufficient time to replace recalled airbags before they present a risk to safety."

It's not yet clear if any Tesla vehicles have the highly dangerous alpha airbags installed.