Takata Airbag Inflator Recall Fact Sheet

To compare this completion rate with other industry recalls, Honda analyzed 14 unrelated automotive recall campaigns, with a combined volume of more than eight million vehicles. While Honda found completion rates of up to 80 percent for vehicles in the first year of ownership, the company also found that the completion percentage declines with each passing year, to around 33 percent in the 9th and 10th year of ownership. A significant number of vehicles affected by the Takata airbag inflator recalls are now or soon to be more than 15 years old.

"Alpha" Inflators at High Risk

Ongoing Customer Notification Efforts

In total, Honda has made over 398 million individual owner outreach attempts related to Takata airbag inflator recalls thus far, and the effort continues. Honda has distributed at least one mailed notification letter, and in many cases several, to each and every registered owner of affected Honda and Acura vehicles for which actionable information exists in state registration records and other sources, including vehicles with salvage titles.

Honda pulls current addresses from state registration records for registered owners when we send initial recall notification letters, and if there is a change of ownership noted in registration records, Honda is notified and can quickly notify the new owner. In total, Honda has distributed more than 280 million mailed notices pursuant to Takata airbag inflator recalls since 2008.

We have supplemented mailed notifications with the following actions:

Centralized Web Resource

• Honda established a dedicated website (http://hondaairbaginfo.com/) for affected owners and stakeholders to view information, news and updates concerning the recall. A prominent display ad has been placed on Honda.com, directing visitors to the site.

Phone Calls

• Honda has more than doubled the size of its Customer Relations team, which has made millions of direct and automated phone calls to affected owners. To encourage recall repair, the phone calls are direct and clear about the risk of injury and death associated with inflator ruptures.

• Phone calls have proven to be among the most effective means of driving recall repair completion, and it is now Honda's practice to use automated calls to alert customers in advance of mailed notifications.

• Honda notifies potentially affected customers via SMS and MMS messages where a valid mobile phone number can be linked to the owner of a recalled vehicle. We have sent more than 6.3 million text messages to owners of affected vehicles since December 2015.
• Honda has enlisted the support of over 1,100 Acura and Honda dealers in the U.S. to reach out to owners of unrepaired "Alpha" vehicles in their local communities through their Business Development Centers (BDC). With their knowledge of the local communities and a local phone number to call from, the BDCs are often able to engage with owners that Honda has been unable to reach by other means.

Targeted Advertising – Call to Action

• In March 2015, Honda conducted a multi-million dollar advertising campaign in Spanish and English that included full-page, color advertisements in more than 120 newspapers, and 30-second radio announcements in more than 110 markets. The campaign targeted 9 southern states that have been identified as representing the greatest risk to affected owners.

• In October 2015, Honda ran a subsequent round of print, digital and radio advertising in select markets. In February 2016, Honda targeted Florida's Miami-Dade and Broward counties with a similar campaign.

• At the 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2020 Honda Battle of the Bands in Atlanta, Georgia, Honda displayed a recall notification message on the stadium's main video screens and on monitors throughout the stadium with more than 60,000 fans in attendance each year. The message also appeared on the event's livestream webcast. Honda displayed the same safety message during the livestream webcast of the 2016 and 2017 Honda Campus All-Star Challenge National Championship Tournaments.

• Honda also displayed a recall notification message on arena video boards at eight stops during the 2016 Civic Tour, highlighting this important issue to over 70,000 young music fans.

Social Media Engagement

• Honda has run sponsored, customized Facebook posts that target specific individuals who own affected vehicles. The posts mention the make and model of the vehicle in question. To implement the campaign, Honda leveraged Facebook's Custom Audiences feature, which provides the ability to target a brand's first party data on the Facebook platform. To reach specific owners of affected vehicles, encrypted email addresses associated with recalled VINs are matched to Facebook UserIDs. When a customer logs into Facebook, they are presented with a custom message regarding the recall.

• Honda's Customer Service Twitter account (@HondaCustSvc) changed its banner image to raise awareness of Takata airbag inflator recalls, and pinned a Tweet explaining how to quickly check a vehicle for open recalls online. In addition to responding to customer concerns regarding the airbag inflator recall, Customer Service social media staff seek to identify Honda & Acura customers that are engaged in unrelated discussions online to encourage them to check their vehicles for open recalls.

Employees' Friends & Family Campaign

An idea by a group of Honda associates (employees) has become a campaign that now provides all of Honda's U.S. associates (nearly 30,000) with materials and information to help them raise awareness among their own friends and family – and pass the word to others. Materials include social media messaging, business cards directed at customers who own vehicles potentially affected by the recalls and a visual guide with information on Alpha models. This grassroots campaign has resulted in a number of repairs to date.

Industry & B2B Engagement

• Honda has been working with CARFAX - the most comprehensive vehicle history database available in North America - to improve recall efforts and add open recall alerts to the CARFAX history for affected vehicles.
• Honda has engaged the auto insurance industry to explore opportunities to raise awareness of the recall among shared customers.
• Millions of older-model Honda and Acura vehicles are brought to independent repair facilities (IRF), rather than authorized dealers, for mechanical repairs. Honda has provided posters and call-to-action letters to more than 160,000 IRFs. In addition, Honda has run advertisements and published videos in IRF industry publications and newsletters encouraging IRF employees to check customer VINs and encourage recall completion.

Unique Efforts

• To prevent the possibility that an affected Takata airbag inflator can ever be used as a replacement part, Honda has been searching salvage yards nationwide to find and secure (purchase) recalled inflators. This voluntary effort has successfully removed over 535,000 inflators from salvage yards, and the effort continues. Honda also has requested that major online auction sites prohibit and stop the sale of affected airbags.

• Honda has applied graphics about the recall to more than 300 American Honda Parts & Service trucks, transforming them into rolling billboards that encourage affected owners to take immediate action. These trucks cover more than 100,000 miles per day, all across the country.

• The HondaLink smartphone app has been updated to alert owners that their registered vehicle is subject to any open recall when they use the app.

• Targeting owners of vehicles with unrepaired "Alpha" inflators and other older high risk vehicles, Honda has sent teams of Honda representatives to physically knock on owners' doors nationwide to assist them with scheduling recall repairs.

Takata Data Manipulation & Wire Fraud

• In spring 2015, Honda became aware of evidence that Takata had falsified and manipulated test data for certain airbag inflators. Honda expects its suppliers to act with integrity at all times and we remain deeply troubled by this behavior by one of our suppliers.

• In response to concerns about the performance and quality of Takata's airbag inflators, Honda took the following actions:
  • • On a global basis, no new Honda and Acura models currently under development will be equipped with a front driver or passenger Takata airbag inflator. (As of late 2016, no new Honda or Acura vehicles produced for sale in the U.S. featured Takata airbag inflators.)
  • • No replacement inflators now being used to repair Honda and Acura vehicles are supplied by Takata. All replacement inflators are now manufactured by alternative suppliers.
  • • At Honda's request, Takata retained the services of a third party to conduct a thorough audit of all Takata dual stage frontal airbag inflator test data and related information that was supplied to Honda. The first phase of this audit was completed in September 2016 and phase two is now underway.

• On January 13, 2017, Takata Corporation pled guilty to criminal wire fraud charges brought by the United States Department of Justice and agreed to pay a total of $1 billion stemming from the company's fraudulent conduct in relation to sales of defective airbag inflators to multiple automakers, including Honda.

Honda is deeply saddened by the harm Takata's wrongdoing has caused to our customers. Honda remains focused on our urgent efforts to prevent additional injuries from the rupture of Takata airbag inflators. We urge owners of affected vehicles to complete the required recall repairs immediately. These repairs are free at all authorized Honda and Acura dealerships throughout the country.