Rising threat of counterfeit airbags leads to public safety announcement
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — A rise in counterfeit airbags has inspired a new campaign for consumers.
The "Put the Brakes on Fakes" campaign from the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center warns drivers of unsafe and potentially deadly counterfeit auto parts. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has seized more than 210,000 counterfeit car parts coming into our country so far this year.
"They say that is twice the number that was captured in all of 2023. Included in that was nearly 500 defective airbags, and that number is up 10 times from the number that they took in 2023," said Patrick Olsen, editor-in-chief of CARFAX.
Olsen says Carfax learned millions of consumers are driving around with replacement airbags, giving scammers an opportunity.
"We at Carfax took a look at the last two years, and we were looking specifically for cars where an airbag had deployed and then was back on the road," Olsen said. "There were 1.9 million events like that. And so now there's nearly 2 million cars where scammers had the opportunity to, in that case, put in a substandard airbag into the car instead of a legitimate one."
There's no way to say exactly how many vehicles on the road are compromised with these counterfeit airbags, but Olsen said it's a safety issue.
"Either the airbag does nothing," Olsen said. "So, you're in a crash and there's no protection for the driver or the passenger. Or in some cases, as we've seen, the airbag will explode with so much force it turns the metal parts of it into shrapnel, literally flying pieces of metal in the cabin of the car. We know of at least three cases, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, of people being killed in just the last year."
If you're curious if one of these counterfeit airbags made its way into your vehicle, Olsen has this advice.
"Go to the mechanic and ask them to inspect it," he said. "There should be markings on the airbag that will indicate where it came from and if it's a legitimate airbag. They can also inspect it to make sure that it's installed in the car with through the electronics correctly."
Federal investigators think this is a national problem. It's important to note that right now, there are no reports of these airbags in any new cars. But consumers need to know if they see a replacement part online and the price seems too good to be true, that's a red flag.
If you are considering buying a used car, run the vehicle identification number through a CARFAX tool, and it'll tell you whether there's been an airbag deployment in that car.