2009 Acura Tl 3.5 on 2040-cars

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Honda airbags are being stolen

The latest hot target for car thieves might just be the airbag mounted inside your steering wheel. And late-model Honda and Acura vehicles are a particularly hot target right now, for reasons not well understood. USA Today reports that criminals across the country are stealing airbags out of relatively new Honda models for apparent resale online or to black market repair shops. It's a trend that has caught the attention of law enforcement agencies in cities like Miami, New York City and Washington D.C. The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) estimates that around 50,000 airbags are stolen each year. In Miami-Dade County, thieves stole 875 airbags in 2017, up from just 13 in 2013, according to police records obtained by USA Today. In the Virginia suburbs outside Washington D.C., thieves recently smashed the windows of 10 Hondas at an apartment complex to steal the airbags. Second Lt. Jonathan Bryant told the local Fox affiliate that stolen Honda airbags often end up in chop shops and can command between $300 and $500 each. A quick search of eBay listings for Honda steering wheel airbags turns up results being sold for as high as $700, though most are listing for hundreds less than that. New replacement versions purchased from dealerships approach $1,000. Many dishonest repair shops install the stolen airbags as new and charge the owner or their insurer full price for the replacement, a version of insurance fraud. Last year, police in Coral Springs, Fla. published an alert on the neighborhood social networking site Nextdoor urging residents who own a Honda or Acura to park in a garage or well-lit area, "or if you have another vehicle, pull it as close to your driver's side door as possible," they wrote. "We have seen an increase in airbag thefts, primarily in Acura and Honda models," the posting added. "The suspect(s) often disarm the alarm by cutting the battery, punch the driver side door lock or smash the window. It is believed these criminals take approx. 5-10 minutes to steal the airbag." One theory for the apparent rise in airbag thefts is that a spate of airbag recalls in recent years — including the ongoing recall of nearly 50 million potentially explosive Takata airbag inflators that left suppliers scrambling to make new parts — may have boosted demand for replacements. Most of the vehicles involved are late-model Honda Civics and Accords, but it's not clear exactly why Honda is being targeted.

2017 Acura NSX | 2017 Autoblog Technology of the Year Finalist

Like its iconic predecessor, the second-generation Acura NSX blazes trails. The old NSX proved that you could get reliability and daily use from an exotic car, and subsequently changed the automotive world. Acura's engineers pushed in a new direction for the prodigal successor: technology. And so the new NSX sets a new bar in the way technology is used to achieve speed. The highlight here is the Sport Hybrid SH-AWD system, which supplements the 500-horsepower twin-turbo V6 with three electric motors, making 573 peak ponies. The two front motors each act on a front wheel, doing all kinds of tricks to help the car corner faster, brake harder, and accelerate like the proverbial cannon shot. They help make the NSX more stable at high speed, and let you sneak up on unsuspecting video producers at low speed. Then there's the third motor sandwiched between the engine and nine-speed transmission, which never lets a shift go by without filling in the milliseconds with velvety torque. If the all-wheel-drive hybrid supercar sounds familiar, yes, Porsche did something similar with the 918 Spyder. But even when you load the options on the NSX (try not to, we dare you), it's never more than a fifth the price of the Porsche. Then there are the little details, like a new form of casting Honda engineers developed for the NSX's crash structure. Or the three-dimensional bend to the A-pillar and roof rail that makes it less obstructive to the driver and also stronger. Even the Marysville, Ohio factory gets some credit here, with 12 patents filed relating to the assembly process. There's only so much a driver can do with two hands and two feet. The NSX takes your inputs and figures out how to maximize the contribution from each individual wheel. This is a car that harnesses all the greatness of technology to change what's possible in a sports car.Related Video: 2017 Acura NSX | First Drive

2015 Acura NSX burns to the ground at the 'Ring [w/video]

Assuming all goes to plan, automakers test their vehicles to the breaking point in the months and years leading up to that vehicle's actual release into the public. Which is good, because it's much better for a car to break in glorious fashion in the hands of the company that produces it than in the driveway of an owner who just spent their hard-earned cash to get it.
Such was the case with this production-guise Acura NSX prototype that we saw running around the Nürburgring just the other day. We can't be 100-percent certain, but the burned-out carcass is wearing the same number plate as the car that was spotted earlier, so it's likely the very same NSX. We have no idea what was the cause of the blaze that turned this Acura into the car-b-q you see pictured above, but our spy shooters on the ground in Germany say it was not involved in any collision, having caught on fire all on its own with engineers behind the wheel.
The good news is that nobody was hurt, though the car is quite clearly a complete loss. We're sure there's another ready to to test in the burned car's place... just as soon as the engineers at Honda figure out exactly what went wrong. Have a look at the smoldering aftermath up above, and feel free to scroll down below to see a video of the car in much better circumstances.