Luxury Cars Recalled Over Exploding Seatbelts

For the second time in less than a year. a major automaker is contending with an exploding seat belt component.

Hyundai is recalling more than 65,000 of its Genesis luxury vehicles due to a seat-belt component that could explode, safety regulators said.

This was the second time the South Korean automaker had experienced this issue.

The recall covers 65,517 Genesis G80, GV60, GV70, and GV80 vehicles, according to a filing from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The agency said the seat-belt pretensioner, which tightens the belt in the event of a crash, could explode.  

The pretensioner "may deploy abnormally in certain crashes due to over pressurization of the pretensioner pipe," the NHTSA filing said, 

The agency said that "an abnormal pyrotechnic practitioner deployment could cause metal fragments to enter the vehicle occupant compartments."

Owners of the affected vehicles will be notified by mail and instructed to bring them to Genesis dealers to have the seat-belt pretensioner's micro gas generator and delivery pipe secured with a cap. The fix is made at no cost to owners.

Hyundai had a similar problem last year when the automaker recalled 239,000 vehicles in the U.S. due to exploding seat belt pretensioners. Three injuries were reported in that case, with two in the U.S. and one in Singapore.

The earlier recall expanded and replaced three previous recalls and included 2019-2022 Accents, 2021-2023 Elantras and 2021-2022 Elantra HEVs, or hybrid electric vehicles.

Kia, which is minority owned by Hyundai, had a similar problem with exploding pretensioners and recalled 17,000 of its Sorrento models last June. 

NHTSA said in August that it was investigating both companies' vehicles. The agency said that Samsung Industries Co. is the supplier of the pretensioners.

Hyundai began making the Genesis GV70 at its plant in Montgomery, Ala., on Feb. 21. 

The company also manufactures the Ioniq 5 and the Kia EV6 all-electric vehicles and will debut its new Ioniq 6 in the U.S. in the spring.

The Hyundai Genesis debuted in 2008 and Genesis was spun off as a separate entity in 2017.