Citing a defect information report provided by Takata, Honda North America announced this week that it is recalling roughly 2.23 million Takata PSDI-5 driver-side front airbag inflators in both Honda and Acura vehicles.

One key takeaway from their announcement: the inflators will be replaced with parts manufactured by an alternative supplier, with repairs anticipated to begin this summer.

The models included in this recall in the United States include the following:

• 2005-2012 Acura RL
• 2007-2011 Honda CR-V
• 2007-2016 Acura RDX (early production MY 2016 vehicles only)
• 2007-2014 Honda Ridgeline
• 2009-2014 Honda Fit
• 2009-2014 Acura TL
• 2010-2014 Honda FCX Clarity
• 2010-2014 Honda Insight
• 2010-2013 Acura ZDX
• 2011-2015 Honda CR-Z
• 2013-2016 Acura ILX (early production MY 2016 vehicles only)

According to Honda, with this new action, the total number of Honda and Acura vehicles that have been or now are subject to recall due to needing to replace a Takata driver-side and/or passenger-side airbag inflator in the United States now totals approximately 8.51 million vehicles. The company says that no PSDI-5 inflator ruptures have been reported in either Honda or Acura vehicles.

Honda says that the affected vehicles will be accurately searchable on its Honda and Acura recall sites beginning on February 15.

In other Honda-related recall news, the company also announced this week that approximately 341,000 Accord sedans from model years 2008 to 2010 have been voluntarily recalled to replace their supplemental restraint system (SRS) electronic control units. Parts will not be available until fall.

Kelley Blue Book on the ‘potential liability’ for Honda dealers

Kelley Blue Book emailed commentary to media on Wednesday about news of Honda issuing a recall and stop-sale notice to dealers on 1.7 million units for a Takata airbag issue plus a warning to their stores of potential liability.

Auto Remarketing followed up with KBB’s senior director of automotive industry insights, Karl Brauer, to get a better idea of the situation.

“This is the first time I remember hearing that statement made from a manufacturer to its dealers,” Brauer said.

So what does this actually mean for Honda dealers? Brauer says that a dealer is much more likely to be held liable if something does go wrong with a vehicle they sold if it were to be retailed prior to its repair.

“Because the manufacturer is on record for making the statement, as with any case in liability and legal matters, there’s no clear-cut ‘A+B=C.’ It’s all a matter of weighting and arguments and evidence,” Brauer said. “But this just increases, by the very nature that Honda said they (dealers) would be liable, that increases their liability. Because now the manufacturer, who produces these cars, is on record saying, ‘you’re liable, too.’ That’s the kind of stuff a lawyer wants. That’s the exact kind of thing that a lawyer who is representing a client who is injured in an automotive-related issue wants to have.”

While that does create a record for the manufacturer to point to, should a recall-related accident happen and a consumer decides to sue, it still may not be a closed case against the dealer.

“The dealer can totally disagree, they can point to a lot of their own evidence that says they’re not liable, and who knows how the case would ultimately be decided by either a judge or a jury,” Brauer said. “But, again, just that statement now changes the nature of the argument because it’s been clearly stated by a manufacturer.”

One thing is for sure, though: The thought process behind how vehicle recalls are handled has elevated substantially.

“I think we all agree that there’s an increasing awareness of the entire concept of vehicle recalls,” Brauer said. “They’ve made a lot more headlines in the last five to 10 years, there’s been a lot better documentation about the kind of injuries and even fatalities that they’ve caused. So everyone knows more about them. And what this has resulted in is everyone from individual consumers up to government agencies being that much more focused on: What do we do about recalls? How do we most effectively manage them? How do we ensure that something is done about them? Because any kind of rudimentary analysis of recalls over the last 20, 30, 40 years shows that they tend to be fairly low priority.”

Brauer says he thinks a manufacturer holding a dealer more accountable for the backlash of safety recalls is simply them doing everything they can to try to handle the situation.

“I think the reason that you’re seeing Honda make a move like this is because they want to feel like they’ve done everything they can do. They can’t control the consumer,” he said. “But they can use whatever pressure that they’ve got at their command to influence themselves and their own engineers and their suppliers, like Takata, and also their dealers.”

Unfortunately, with parts availability continuing to be an issue, these vehicles are likely to spend a lot of time out of the marketplace.

“We’re looking at the end of summer as the time frame to get these replacement parts to dealers to fix the cars,” Brauer said. “So whether you want to wholesale it or you want to sell it to an end user, whether you’re a dealer who’s just going to wait or you’re a dealer that’s just going to try to get it to another person and let them deal with it, we’re talking seven months before those cars can actually get to an end user and be clear of the retailing system and in a private individual’s hands. And that’s really unfortunate because dealers don’t have unlimited space and unlimited funds to have unsellable cars sitting around.”

One thing that is on the minds of many in the industry is whether or not issuing a stop-sale order on vehicles with an open recall will become a new industry norm.

“I would hope that there would be a threshold level,” Brauer said. “And maybe what they need is a categorization system, like an alert level that goes from 1 to 4, 1 to 5 or whatever.”

Though it seems like a dismal situation, there is one major player in the automotive industry that does come out of this situation better than before if stop sales do become a more consistent element to the used-car industry: Mike Jackson. The head of AutoNation created a policy last year that shelved all vehicles with open recalls on any of his dealer’s lots until they have been repaired. And although that’s currently grounded over 15 percent of his inventory, he seems ahead of the game.

“I think it’s a good example of a major player in the industry using a combination of good sense and forward thinking to basically decide this is where the industry needs to go and we’re going to go ahead and get there ourselves without waiting for the industry,” Brauer said. “And of course, which is so often the case in situations like this, them going there speeds up the process and makes the destination that they got to appear that much more reasonable and wise and likely to the rest of the industry.”

Update: Honda's take

Auto Remarketing also reached out to Honda earlier today to verify if the company indeed does plan to hold dealers "liable" for the sale of vehicles, particularly used, with unrepaired open recalls. A spokesperson from American Honda Motor Co., said that it's been a long-standing policy for Honda to require dealers to have all vehicles with open recalls repaired prior to sale.

"For many years, our dealer agreements have required Honda and Acura dealers to complete any open recalls of which they have notice and ensure the vehicle is in proper operating condition prior to sale, whether new or used," the spokesperson said. "We have consistently reminded our dealers of these obligations for some time, including in stop sale orders."