Hyundai North America has announced a massive recall of two sedans, the Accent and Elanta. The action is carried out due to a dangerous defect: it turned out that seat belt pretensioners can explode during a collision. In this case, metal fragments that can cause damage to passengers can fly into the cabin. In total, 239,000 vehicles sold in the United States since 2019 have fallen under the service action.

The list of problem cars includes 61 thousand copies of Hyundai Accent, produced from April 22, 2019 to May 22, 2022 by the Mexican plant Kia Motor Mexico.

Another 166,000 are junior Elantra sedans assembled from September 12, 2020 to May 22, 2022 at the Hyundai site in Alabama. Also, problems were found in 12,000 Elantra hybrid sedans assembled from December 15, 2020 to May 9, 2022. All cars were made for sale in the USA.

The reason for the recall is defective seat belts. It turned out that in the event of an accident, belt pretensioners can explode and throw metal fragments into the passenger compartment.

On recalled vehicles, the microgas generator and pressure pipe will be shut off to prevent abnormal operation. It’s done for free.

Hyundai still does not know what exactly is the problem with the belts of the Korean company Samsong, although it learned about the dangerous defect last fall. Then the driver’s belt pretensioner on the Elantra exploded, and metal fragments injured the passenger. After that, about a thousand Hyundai and Genesis cars were recalled, and by the spring of 2022 more than six thousand copies had joined them.

Source: NHTSA