— Another Hyundai exploding seat belt pretensioner recall has been announced following a 2021 Hyundai pretensioner recall and a March 2022 Kia exploding pretensioner recall.
According to Hyundai, the front driver and passenger seat belt pretensioners in more than 6,200 model year 2021-2022 Elantra and 2020 Accent vehicles use pyrotechnics to deploy the pretensioners in a crash.
Those pretensioners tighten the seat belts against occupants in crash impacts, but Hyundai says the pretensioners may explode during deployment. And the automaker says engineers still haven't figured out exactly what is causing the problem.
In October 2021, the U.S. government contacted Hyundai about a 2021 Hyundai Elantra crash in which the driver-side seat belt pretensioner exploded and sent metal fragments into the occupant's leg.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requested info from Hyundai and the automaker decided to conduct a recall of vehicles equipped with pretensioners from a certain production lot.
Another incident was reported in February 2022 and in March a Kia seat belt pretensioner recall was announced for Sorento Hybrids and Sorento Plug-in Hybrids.
Hyundai expects to mail recall letters May 31, 2022, and dealers will replace the seat belt pretensioners in the vehicles.
Hyundai Accent and Elantra owners may call 855-371-9460 and use recall reference number 223.
