Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc. (MMNA) is recalling 531 model year 2010 Mitsubishi Endeavor model vehicles manufactured between May 26 and July 28, 2009. The retainer bracket used for the seat-mounted side airbag frames on both the driver and front passenger seats may not have been properly welded. If this condition exists, the front seat-mounted airbags may not deploy correctly in a side impact crash, possibly resulting in injury to the seat occupant. Mitsubishi will notify owners, and dealers will inspect the weld condition of the side airbag retainer bracket on the front passenger seats. If the weld is insufficient, the dealer will replace the seatback assembly free of charge. The safety recall is expected to begin on or about September 22, 2009. 09V-361.

This is yet another quality control problem: defects in a critical safety component escaped the assembly without being noticed.  This is exactly the kind of problem Mitsubishi should have anticipated in the seat assembly process, and should have implemented rigorous quality control measures to ensure seats with this defect were never shipped to customers.

Mitsubishi was notified about this issue by its seat supplier (Bloomington Seating Co.) on August 27, 2009.  Mitsubishi and its seat supplier then inspected vehicles in its possession prior to being shipped to a dealer, and found this defect existed in several of those vehicles.  On September 3, 2009, Mitsubishi issued a “stop sale” telling its dealers not to sell any 2010 Mitsubishi Endeavor vehicles until they had been inspected for this issue.  However, Mitsubishi did not formally notify the government until September 15, 2009 and consumer notification was expected to begin about one week after that.