If you drive an older Honda or Acura, you may need to immediately replace its airbag inflator

The Honda logo.
(Image credit: Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is instructing owners of 313,000 older Hondas and Acuras to stop what they're doing and replace the Takata airbag inflators inside their cars.

"These vehicles are unsafe and need to be repaired immediately," Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a statement on Thursday. "Folks should not drive these vehicles unless they are going straight to a dealer to have them repaired." The advisory is for 2001 and 2002 Honda Civics and Accords, 2002 and 2003 Acura TL, 2002 Honda Odyssey and CR-V, and 2003 Acura CL and Honda Pilot. The older the vehicle, the more time the inflator has spent in heat and humidity, and that makes them more likely to malfunction, The Associated Press reports.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.