Toyota, Nissan Add 6.5M Cars to Takata Airbag Recall

Toyota and Nissan have added another heap of cars to the already massive Takata airbag recall.

The companies have aded 6.5 million vehicles to the recall, which is to replace faulty Takata airbag inflators which can deploy with too much force, throwing shrapnel at the occupants of the vehicle.

Toyota alone is adding 5 million Corolla and Vitz/Yaris small cars to its worldwide recall. In total, 35 different models of the two cars are being called back, with 1.36 million coming from Japan, 1.27 million from Europe, 637,000 from the U.S. and 18,000 from Canada. Cars built between March 2003 and November 2007 are affected.

SEE ALSO: Honda Enlists U.S. Firm to Investigate Takata Airbags

Toyota will replace the front driver-side inflator with a newly manufactured part made by Daicel Corp., while the front passenger inflator will come from Takata. Toyota says it is only using more Takata inflators because replacement parts from a different supplier aren’t available.

Toyota is not aware of any accidents or injuries in its vehicles as a result of this problem.

Nissan is bringing back 1.56 million vehicles globally for the same problem, with 563,000 cars affected in Europe, 326,000 in North America, 288,000 in Japan and 274,000 in China. At this time, Nissan has not given details on which models are affected.

Toyota said that many of its inflators were susceptible to moisture intrusion, which likely caused the abnormal deployment, although the company still doesn’t have details on how the two are connected. High humidity areas such as the Gulf Coast in the U.S. were the initial target of the recalls, though they have since spread to cover entire countries.

So far, six deaths have been confirmed as a result of this issue, all of which took place in Honda vehicles. Honda says that it is prepared to announced more recalls related to the issue soon. Investigations by regulators in the U.S. and Japan as well as two private firms are currently underway.

[Source: Automotive News]

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