Holden recalls 42,000 Commodores

Holden is recalling 42,000 Commodores over a potential seatbelt fault.

Holden issued the recall Monday afternoon after a confidential bulletin was sent to its network of 230 dealers late last week, instructing them not to sell any new Commodores or transfer them to other showrooms.

Holden says the seatbelt pre-tensioner module can make contact with the seatbelt buckle assembly under the seat, causing an electrical short that can disable the seatbelt pre-tensioner mechanism in a crash.

Pre-tensioners 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.

Holden says there have been no customer reports of the seatbelt pre-tensioners not working.

"The investigation began following an isolated report received from the (production line)," the Holden statement said.

The airbag warning light may appear in the instrument cluster on affected cars. Holden says the other airbags and safety systems are unaffected.

This is the fourth Holden recall so far this year (of the 33 vehicle recalls to date) but this is 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 per cent, 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.

In March 2006, more than 129,000 Commodores, Monaros and Statesmans were recalled after Holden discovered the seat-mounted side airbags in 13 customer cars activated "under circumstances which did not warrant inflation".

In 2004, Holden recalled 115,000 Commodores in Australia (and 20,000 overseas) to replace faulty power steering hoses.

But the Holden recalls are small compared to those issued by market leader Toyota.

In April 2014, Toyota recalled almost 300,000 cars and utes for faults including a potential airbag failure and seats that may slip forward.

Owners of 179,000 Hilux utes built between April 2004 and the end of 2009 and 118,600 Yaris small cars made between June 2005 and May 2010 have been caught up in global recall of 6.76 million Toyotas.

In October 2012, Toyota Australia recalled almost 300,000 cars — from a 7.4 million global batch — across six models including the Corolla, Kluger, RAV4, Yaris, Aurion and Camry built between 2006 and 2010.

That recall was to replace the electric window master switch because "the switch assembly may overheat and melt".