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Australian automobile manufacturer Holden is recalling 42,000 Commodores over a potential fault with front seatbelt, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) announced on its website.
Holden also issued the recall Monday afternoon, affecting almost every Commodore since the new model went on sale in May last year.
Local news website news.com.au reported that Holden had sent a confidential bulletin to its network of 230 dealers late last week, instructing them not to sell any new Commodores or transfer them to other showrooms.
ACCC said a condition has been identified with Commodores where the pretensioner wiring harness may make contact with a bolt at the base of the seat belt buckle assembly. As a result the wiring harness may wear prematurely.
If the defect occurs, the airbag warning light may illuminate on the instrument cluster. In addition, there is a risk that the pretensioner may not deploy in the event of an accident, and this poses an accident hazard to the occupants of the vehicle.
Pretensioners are designed to take up the seatbelt's slack milliseconds before an airbag deploys, giving the driver and front passenger the best chance of survival in a serious crash.
All other safety devices, including airbags, are unaffected by this issue.
Holden said there have been no customer reports of the seatbelt pretensioners not working.
"The investigation began following an isolated report received from the (production line)," the Holden statement said.
This is the fourth Holden recall so far this year but the first sign of trouble for the new Commodore, which went into production in May 2013 and has enjoyed 10 months in a row of year-on-year sales growth.
Commodore sales so far this year are up by 62 percent, albeit off last year's record low base.
The previous generation Commodore was recalled 10 times between 2006 and 2013, two of which were in the first three months of going on sale.
