Below is J. Jones’ summary of ConsumerAffairs.com’s recent article on Honda’s airbag deployment defect. Ms. Jones is a law clerk at my law office.
To answer the question posed in the title of this article, I believe that the answer is yes. Most of the time, when there is an airbag related defect in a vehicle, the rebuttable presumption found in the Texas Lemon Law is triggered. The rebuttable presumption states that if the vehicle has been subject to 2 unsuccessful attempt for a serious safety hazard for the same defect, then the vehicle is presumed to be a lemon. I always cringe when I read or write about the Texas Lemon Law serious safety standard because it forces consumers to risk their lives not once, but twice, in order to prove that their car is a lemon.
Article Summary:
In this article presented by Joe Benton of ConsumerAffairs.com, a young woman and her boyfriend were getting ready to leave in their new 2006 Honda Civic. The airbags exploded into the faces of the young couple when they closed the passenger door and shifted the transmission into reverse to back out of their spot.
Honda at first claims that the door was closed to hard. After they realized how ridiculous that claim was, they changed their position to something a little more understandable, “We don’t know.”
The mother of the young girl believes that, either way, Honda is covering up the true reason of the deployment. Mom also states that their trade in proposal, which would land them with a higher balance and a $16 increase in monthly payments, is absurd.
It has been reported that other consumers have experienced similar problems with Honda airbags as well. As Mr. Benton states, “But all is not lost. Rosemary’s daughter’s 2006 Honda Civic wins the ConsumerAffairs.Com lemon of the Week award for the immaculate deployment of the car’s airbags.”