Class Action Filed Over ARC Automotive-Manufactured Airbag Inflators

We filed a class action lawsuit for owners or lessees of vehicles with defective driver or passenger side ARC Automotive airbag inflators. The inflators can cause serious injuries or death.

When consumers buy or lease vehicles, they expect them to have been inspected and designed with safety in mind.

More than 100 plaintiffs from 36 states this summer filed a Consolidated Class Action Complaint alleging violations of state consumer protection and warranty laws.

The plaintiffs also seek to represent a nationwide class on behalf of all people in the United States who purchased, currently own, lease, or leased a Class Vehicle containing a driver or passenger side inflator manufactured by ARC Automotive, Inc. between 2001 and 2018.

The lawsuit filed June 28, 2023, alleges defective airbag inflators were manufactured by ARC, and/or its subsidiaries, successors, or affiliates. The airbag inflators are installed in numerous companies’ airbag modules and distributed or marketed through several vehicle manufacturers.

These defective vehicles pose a serious risk to the safety and health of occupants. Airbag inflators from vehicles in the Class Action suit use gas and propellant to fill the airbag cushion during a crash. The ARC-made defective airbag inflators are manufactured through a friction-welding process, which fuses components of the airbag inflator using heat and rotation. ARC’s friction-welding process, however, inadequately joins the airbag inflator components together and creates excess weld flash, which can exit the inflator upon deployment or rupture the inflator entirely. Due to the location and proximity to vehicle occupants, the inflator defect places occupants at severe risk of bodily injury or death. 

The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration’s conclusions followed a nearly eight-year investigation. During that time, there have been at least 10 known ruptures of the defective inflators in vehicles, including seven driver inflators and three passenger inflators. Two of those ruptures resulted in driver fatalities.

Based on known incidents in the field, NHTSA’s ongoing investigation, pre-release design and testing, and numerous vehicle manufacturer recalls, the defendants have long known about the inflator defect and the risk to consumer safety.

NHTSA has demanded that ARC recall the defective inflators to address the serious safety defect. Despite this demand, ARC refuses to issue any recall of the approximately 30 million affected vehicles for this failure mode.

If you or someone you know has experienced the inflator defect or has a defective ARC-made airbag inflator in their vehicle, our firm would like to speak with you.

This case is being pursued by Beasley Allen Consumer Fraud lawyers Dee Miles, Demet Basar, Clay Barnett, Mitch Williams, and Dylan Martin.