Nissan issues 'do not drive' warning for 84,000 cars that still have Takata airbag inflators

DETROIT — Nissan and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are urging owners of thousands of older Nissan and Infiniti vehicles to stop driving the cars — stop right now — because of danger posed by Takata airbag inflators. The urgency of the warning was punctuated by NHTSA's language in the announcement. It's not often that you see a word like "gruesome" in official government statements:

“Even minor crashes can result in exploding Takata airbags that can kill or produce life-altering, gruesome injuries," NHTSA said. “Older model year vehicles put their occupants at higher risk, as the age of the airbag is one of the contributing factors.”

Involved in this advice are about 84,000 older vehicles with Takata airbag inflators at increased risk of exploding in a crash and hurling dangerous metal fragments.

A front passenger was killed by an exploding inflator in a 2006 Nissan Sentra, a death reported to NHTSA in 2018. In addition, 58 people have been injured by airbag inflators in Nissans since 2015. And the risk has grown as the cars have aged.

“Due to the age of the vehicles equipped with defective Takata airbag inflators, there is an increased risk the inflator could explode during an airbag deployment, propelling sharp metal fragments which can cause serious injury or death,” Nissan said in its own statement on the matter.

These are the vehicles that pose the risk:

• Certain 2002-2006 Sentra small cars.

• Some 2002-2004 Pathfinder SUVs.

• 2002-2003 Infiniti QX4 SUVs.

Is your vehicle affected? You can find out by going to nissanusa.com/takata-airbag-recall or infinitiusa.com/takata-airbag-recall and entering your car's 17-digit vehicle identification number. (The VIN is typically located on the driver-side dashboard and elsewhere on the car.)