Airbag recalls for Nissan, Honda, and Toyota

Historically, the manufacturer should contact you, at which point you call a nearby dealer for an appointment. But, since you saw it on the news already....

Have your VIN ready to read to them. GW

The manufacturer can only contact the original owner and only if they bought it from a local authorised dealer.

The manufacturer cannot contact people who bought the car second-hand, imported it themselves, or bought it off an independant importer. For this reason vehicle recalls should be advertised in the appropriate place (newspapers, etc.) just like any other recalled product - even if the manufacturer doesn't have to legally do that, then it should simply morally and common sense-wise.

Your auto repair station or inspection station should have the recall information to advise you to contact the local dealer to have it repaired.

That assumes the owner takes the car in for a service ... which many people don't do until something goes wrong.

The regular road-worthiness inspection might pick it up, but in some places and for some models that can take quite a while to roll around (and in some places they don't have one at all).

This is for defective air bags, which I have not had to test!!! Apparently the inflator blows full force against the dashboard and sends it flying instead of directing its force to inflate the air bag itself.