WASHINGTON, D.C. -

If you’re a dealer, protecting your customers is about more than protecting your business; it’s about contributing to the overall wellbeing of your community.

So with issues on a large scale as huge as the potential risks caused by Takata’s airbag inflator ruptures, the more you know, the more you can potentially protect yourself, your business and your buyer base.

On that note, some big news broke this week about the Takata airbag inflator issues: a partnership of 10 automakers, called the Independent Testing Coalition, announced that an independent engineering firm has released the results of an investigation into the Takata airbag parts to see what, exactly, is causing them to sometimes rupture and subsequently maim drivers with shrapnel.

According to Orbital ATK, the aforementioned independent engineering firm behind the findings, the following are the three key factors that contribute to the rupture of Takata airbag inflators, as listed by the firm:

  • The presence of pressed phase stabilized ammonium nitrate propellant without moisture absorbing desiccant;
  • Long term exposure to repeated high temperature cycling in the presence of moisture; and
  • An inflator assembly that does not adequately prevent moisture intrusion in high humidity.  

In short, the vehicles with airbags whose inflators do not contain desiccants that spend great deals of time in hot and humid areas are the units most prone to rupture.

To be specific, some of Takata’s airbags contain desiccants and some do not. The results of this study apply solely to the inflators that are subject to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recalls 15E-040 to 15E-043, which use a propellant of non-desiccated phase-stabilized ammonium nitrate, or PSAN. They make up the vast majority, roughly 23 million of the 28 million, of the Takata airbag inflators that have been recalled by NHTSA to date.

Backed by Orbital ATK’s 20,000 hours of testing and analysis by experienced engineers, scientists and technicians, David Kelly, former NHTSA acting administrator and ITC coordinator says this is a critical beginning to remedying the Takata issue.

“Identifying this multivariate root cause is an important first step,” Kelly said in the news release from Orbital ATK. “The ITC will use this data to develop our comprehensive understanding of this critical issue.”

Michelle Krebs, Autotrader’s senior analyst, resonated that sentiment in an Autotrader/Kelley Blue Book analysis. 

“Finding definitive causes of what went wrong with Takata airbags is a huge step forward in ultimately resolving the problem and providing a pathway for the future in airbag development,” Krebs said. “Just as important, the process used to investigate flawed Takata airbags, which brought together outside experts as well as engineers from a host of automakers, is a great example of how industry problems can be solved.”

These results are the first phase in a multi-layered investigation into the defective Takata airbag inflators. In the next phase, the investigators will focus on all inflators that are being used as replacement parts for current recalls and analyze how they are expected to perform.

“The biggest challenge to this recall is getting the repairs done, and even then, those repaired vehicles may have to be reengineered if ammonium nitrate is found to be unsuitable,” KBB senior analyst Rebecca Lindland said in the same analysis. “This recall is not going away any time soon, and hopefully the death toll won’t rise while the investigation continues.

“The toll on resources this recall is absorbing within the affected parties cannot be underestimated. NHTSA, automakers, Takata itself and other parties all will be tied up in this for years to come while the expense mounts.”