Although dealer service managers say it takes less than an hour to remove and replace the inflatorâs in question, the bigger issue is just getting the new parts.
Hiroshi Shimizu, Takataâs senior vice president for global quality assurance, testified at a Senate committee hearing earlier this year that the companyâs plant in Monclova, Mexico, produced 300,000 replacement inflators a month.
Now, after the massive recall, Takata has added two new production lines that Shimizu says will increase the plantâs monthly production to 450,000.
Even at that rate industry experts say itâll take more than a year before the supply of the updated inflators will come close to meeting the demand.
That means owners of the older work trucks on the growing recall list will need to be patient -and hope the original air bag inflator isnât called upon while they do so.
Prudence would call for red-tagging the vehicles that pose a potential life-threatening issue.