NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
    • The Great NZ Road Trip
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • Deloitte Fast 50
    • Generate wealth weekly
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Business

Drivers who skip 50,000-vehicle airbag recall risk failing WOF

Cameron Smith
Cameron Smith
Online Business Editor·NZ Herald·
4 Apr, 2018 08:48 AM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save
    Share this article
Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi announcing the recall of over 50,000 vehicles fitted with defective airbags.

Drivers who don't get faulty airbags fixed as part of a compulsory recall of 50,000 vehicles could be failed when they take their cars for a warrant of fitness.

Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi announced the recall this afternoon.

Vehicle owners can find out whether their cars were affected on MBie's recalls.govt.nz website and a dedicated website detailing all affected cars will be running within days.

The 50,000 vehicles are equipped with Alpha-type Takata airbags, an older model of the airbags, which could deploy unexpectedly, spraying passengers with shrapnel.

It is only the second compulsory recall in New Zealand history, and the largest vehicle recall by far. A further 257,000 vehicles containing non-Alpha airbags are subject to a recall.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Faafoi would stop the importation of vehicles whose airbags had not been fixed. After a 40 working day grace period, no new or used affected vehicles would be allowed into the country.

All Alpha-type airbags must be replaced by December 2019. The compulsory recall comes into effect 40 working days from today.

MIA chief executive David Crawford said that for New Zealand-new vehicles the target was "very achievable" because the numbers were smaller "but for used imported vehicles there's about 45,000, it's going to be tight but the distributors tell me that they expect that they should be able to achieve it within 18 months".

"That's totally dependent on the owner of the vehicles responding to the letters and bringing the vehicles in because that's still the discretionary part," Crawford said.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"We've for a long time said to government how many letters do we write before we say enough is enough and then we look at alternative means which might be ban flagging them ... Preventing [them] going through their next warrant of fitness."

Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi has announced compulsory recall of 50,000 vehicles. Picture / Mark Mitchell
Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi has announced compulsory recall of 50,000 vehicles. Picture / Mark Mitchell

The mandatory recall put a number of measures in place that were not available when it was done on a voluntary basis "and one of those is that we will write three or four letters depending on conversations with the NZTA and then the NZTA will write either the fourth or fifth letter and then after that if the owner still hasn't brought the vehicle in, the NZTA letter will flag that it may not pass it's next warrant or there will be some other mechanism".

The alpha-type airbag, which was part of the mandatory recall, "that's the one that's been worrying us for some time", Crawford said.

"We've been managing this on a voluntary basis for about four years and we're only about 35 per cent of the way through when you put combined new and used vehicles together."

It could take 30 minutes to two hours to fit a replacement airbag, depending on the model.

"At last count, when you take all Takata airbags [which] is now 450,000, only about 130,000 have been done and there's over 100 million worldwide so getting these parts made model-make specific is a logistics challenge"

Discover more

New Zealand|politics

Explosion risk prompts airbag recall

04 Apr 04:42 AM
New Zealand

'Unprecedented scale': Govt recalls 50,000 cars with airbag fault

04 Apr 12:30 AM
Business

Airbag recall explainer: How to check if your car is affected

04 Apr 12:46 AM
Business

'If you want an ashtray, this car is for you': Brutally honest car ad makes headlines

03 Apr 09:00 PM
Just over 26,000 Toyota vehicles were included in the 50,000 recall.
Just over 26,000 Toyota vehicles were included in the 50,000 recall.

Morgan Dilks, digital marketing and communications, Toyota New Zealand, said just over 26,000 Toyota vehicles were included in the 50,000 recall.

"We've already sent letters to 99 per cent of them, some customers we've sent up to three letters, so the remaining 1 per cent will receive letters by the end of this month," Dilks said.

"The biggest issue for us is insuring that when customers receive their letter that they actually contact their dealer and make an appointment to go and get the fix done," he said.

"We are definitely supportive of what the government has announced because we're hoping to encourage people to act a bit more urgently when they receive those letters"

More than 50 per cent had had the airbag replaced, Dilks said.

"If everyone who's received a letter makes contact then we think we could have all the work completed within six months."

A voluntary recall of vehicles with affected Takata airbags began in 2013 but Faafoi said not enough progress was being made to repair them.

He has set up a monitoring group to ensure non-Alpha airbag recalls were progressing and said he would make that compulsory too if it wasn't.

"I am not willing to compromise on the safety of New Zealanders," he said.

Australia issued a compulsory recall in late February, covering about four million vehicles - one in seven on its roads.

The Takata airbags, mostly made in Japan, have been associated with 23 deaths and 230 serious injuries worldwide since 2008.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Vehicle owners can find out whether their cars were affected on MBie's recalls.govt.nz website and a dedicated website detailing all affected cars would be running within days.

Save
    Share this article

Latest from Business

Premium
Aged care

Pure Food Co partners with Eat to bring meals into Kiwi homes

11 Sep 02:00 AM
Business

House prices forecast to rise 5.4% in 2026 as 'comatose' market awakens – economist

11 Sep 01:00 AM
Airlines

Boeing claims breakthrough in 3D-printed solar panel component for space satellites

10 Sep 10:27 PM

Sponsored

Research: AI-powered threats are driving security tool consolidation

10 Sep 11:16 PM
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Business

Premium
Premium
Pure Food Co partners with Eat to bring meals into Kiwi homes
Aged care

Pure Food Co partners with Eat to bring meals into Kiwi homes

The Pure Food Co already supplies every NZ public hospital with its meals.

11 Sep 02:00 AM
House prices forecast to rise 5.4% in 2026 as 'comatose' market awakens – economist
Business

House prices forecast to rise 5.4% in 2026 as 'comatose' market awakens – economist

11 Sep 01:00 AM
Boeing claims breakthrough in 3D-printed solar panel component for space satellites
Airlines

Boeing claims breakthrough in 3D-printed solar panel component for space satellites

10 Sep 10:27 PM


Research: AI-powered threats are driving security tool consolidation
Sponsored

Research: AI-powered threats are driving security tool consolidation

10 Sep 11:16 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP