NHTSA Preliminary Evaluation PE15027

The Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) has upgraded its Preliminary Evaluation (PE15-027) of ARC Automotive Inc. (ARC) air bag inflators to an Engineering Analysis. ODI opened PE15-027 in July 2015 based on two injury incidents involving a driver air bag inflator rupture. One incident involved a 2002 Chrysler Town & Country that utilized a dual-stage air bag inflator. The other involved a 2004 Kia Optima that utilized a single-stage inflator. Both driver air bag inflators were manufactured by ARC, a tier-two supplier of automotive air bag systems, at their manufacturing facility in Knoxville Tennessee. All ARC driver air bag inflators are a hybrid design that fills the air bag by releasing an inert gas mixture stored in the inflator at high pressure. The gas mixture is augmented by an ammonium nitrate based propellant. The pressurized gas mixture and propellant are contained entirely within a hermetically sealed steel housing isolated from external atmospheric conditions.During the course of PE15-027, ODI requested information from ARC about which air bag module manufacturers used the subject ARC inflators. Based on the information received from ARC, ODI requested information from the identified air bag module manufacturers about which vehicle manufacturers used modules with the subject ARC inflators. That process identified two additional affected vehicle manufacturers, General Motors and Hyundai.Based on the age of the vehicles involved in the two incidents in the U.S., ODI focused on single- and dual-stage inflators manufactured by ARC from the start of production to September 2004. It is estimated that approximately 8 million inflators, both single- and dual-stage, were manufactured for use in vehicles produced by Chrysler, GM, Kia and Hyundai for sale or lease in the United States during that time frame.In addition to identifying models using the subject ARC air bag inflator, ODI requested that the affected vehicle manufacturers supply the details for any ty