Six automakers to recall 3.4 mn vehicles worldwide over faulty Takata-made airbags

Six automakers, General Motors, Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mazda and BMW are recalling about 3.4 million vehicles worldwide over an identical problem with passenger airbags, making it the largest recall ever for faulty airbags.

All the airbags were supplied to the automakers involved in the recall by Japan's Takata Corp, the world's second-largest supplier of airbags and seat-belts.

The airbags inflator may suddenly deploy with too much pressure and burst, causing the interior to rupture and possibly send out projectiles.

Industry experts say that the front passenger airbags could have been assembled with excess gas canister charges resulting in a risk of fires or passengers getting injured by metal fragments.

Toyota is recalling a total of 1.7 million Corolla, Corolla Fielder, Lexus SC, Tundra, Yaris, Camry, Avensis, Vios and some other models produced between November 2000 and March 2004, with around 580,000 in North America, 490,000 in Europe and 320,000 in Japan.

Toyota, which operates in India through a joint venture with the Kirloskar group, will recall a select lot of its premium sedan Corolla sold in India to rectify defective airbags. The company did not say how many Corolla cars would be recalled as it is yet to finalise the complete lot for this recall exercise.

Honda is recalling around 1.14 million Civic, CR-V and Odyssey models worldwide, including 561,400 vehicles in the US, 107,800 in Canada, 270,000 in Japan and 64,000 in Europe, while Nissan Motor is recalling about 480,000 vehicles globally, including more than 265,000 in the US.

Mazda has not given out many details but said that it is recalling 45,500 vehicles worldwide, including its RX-8 and Mazda 6 in North America, Europe, China and other countries.

German carmaker BMW said that it is still assessing which models are to be included in the recall, while General Motors said that it is recalling about 55,000 Pontiac Vibe cars from model year 2003 built for the US and Canadian markets.

All carmakers said that although incidents of malfunctions had been reported, there were no accidents or injuries.

The automakers have said they will repair or replace the faulty airbags free of charge.

Other carmaker like Jaguar Land Rover, Chrysler, Daimler, Ford, Peugeot Citroen, Renault and Volkswagen said they were not affected since they have not installed airbags from Takata.

This recall is the largest for Tokyo-based Takata after more than 8 million vehicles were recalled worldwide in I995 by several automakers where it had supplied defective seatbelts.