A Faulty Airbag Recall Has Four Automakers Recalling A Collective 3.4 Million Vehicles Globally Because Of Faulty Airbags Manufactured By Takata Corp, A Tokyo Based Component Maker That Also Supplies Parts To Foreign Automakers.
The faulty airbag recall, one of the biggest in history, includes some of the world’s bestselling vehicles, including the Honda Civic, the Toyota Corolla, and the Nissan Maxima. All the recalled vehicles were made during or after 2000.
While no reports of injuries or deaths have been associated with the defective devices, the manufacturer said that the faulty airbags pose the risk of catching fire or injuring passengers. According to Reuters, the front passenger seat airbag may not inflate during an accident because of the propellant used to inflate the airbags.
Millions Of Vehicles Involved In Air Bag Recall
- Toyota recalling 1.73 million vehicles including the Yaris, Camry, Corolla, Lexus SC
- Tundra made between November 2000 and March 2004
- Honda recalling 1.14 million vehicles, including the Civic, CR-V- and Odyssey
- Mazda Motor Corp recalling 45,500 vehicles including the Mazda 6 and RX-8
- Nissan Motor Co. recalling 480,000 vehicles, including Cube and Maxima though the company warns that more vehicles may be included in the recall.
Takata Airbag Recall
The reasons behind the current recall include human errors, the Boston Globe reports, including improperly stored parts, and that a system for removing defective parts was not turned on during production. Toyota told the Globe that it has received five reports of air bag problems but no reports of injuries associated with the defective air bags.
In 1995, defective seatbelts were the cause of a massive 8 million-vehicle recall. Reuters writes that the sheer scale of this recall highlights the issues of major automakers relying on only a few suppliers for common parts as a way to cut costs.
The New York Times reports that fixing the defective airbags will take between one to two-and-a-half hours, though the paper did not estimate the total costs related to the massive recall.
