Mazda to take action over airbag deployment issues.

Mazda North American Operations has notified NHTSA that it plans to voluntarily implement a Special Service Program in limited regions of the United States as a result of several field reports regarding airbag deployments for a variety of vehicle brands equipped with air bag inflators supplied by Takata Corporation and TK Holdings, Inc. On certain vehicles, the air bag may not deploy properly in the event of an accident.

Approximately 34,600 vehicles that were originally sold or are currently registered in Florida, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico are affected.

There is insufficient information at this time to determine the cause of these incidents or if they are related to a safety defect, but Mazda is working with the supplier and NHTSA to investigate these incidents as quickly as possible. 

Mazda has determined that the subject vehicles of the SSP are certain model years of the Mazda6, Mazdaspeed6, RX-8, and MPV, which are equipped with similar types of airbag inflators. 

Specifically the vehicles are identified as:

            2003-2007 MY Mazda6 built from October 4, 2002, through July 31, 2007

            2004-2008 MY RX-8 built from April 23, 2003, through July 26, 2007

            2006-2007 MY Mazdaspeed6 built from August 25, 2005, through June 28, 2007

            2004 MY MPV built from August 21, 2003, through July 28, 2004

Mazda has received one report of a driver injury during airbag deployment.

Owners of record will be notified of this issue and instructed to take their vehicles to a Mazda dealer to replace the air bag inflator with a new one. The work will be performed by Mazda authorized dealers, free of charge to the vehicle owners.

The expected dates for mailing owner notification letters and providing notification to dealers are currently undecided.  It will depend on the availability of replacement parts from the supplier.