Hyundai Motor America is sending recall notices to owner of nearly 400,000 2006-2008 Sonatas. While not all cars are affected, those that are can be easily identified by owners and brought into dealerships for a fix. The recall centers around a faulty airbag sensor mounted in the passenger seat, which can identify small adults as children, and turn the passenger side airbag off.
A dealership will then diagnose the problem, and if the sensor is indeed found to be malfunctioning, the dealer will remove the cushion and send it to Hyundai’s California-based technical center for reprogramming, said Hyundai spokesperson Miles Johnson in an Automotive News report.
Hyundai expects less than four thousand of the potentially affected 394,000 Sonatas will need to temporarily give up their seats, and owners of those vehicles will be supplied with rentals for the duration of the repair.
Hyundai stated to the NHTSA that the problem is a potential and intermittent one, and it does not consider it a safety issue.
