Two million Toyotas recalled over airbag fault

TOYOTA has announced a new world-wide recall of 2.27 million vehicles due to an airbag fault, with 19,600 cars in Australia affected. Toyota Australia says only the Corolla, Avensis Verso and Lexus SC430 models made between January 2001 and May 2003 are to be recalled following the discovery of defective airbag inflators.

In April last year, the same cars were recalled by Toyota but not all had the air bag inflators replaced. At the time it was believed only airbags with certain serial numbers were defective.

In this latest round of recalls, airbag maker Takata has admitted there were errors in the record keeping process at the Mexican plant where the potentially defective airbags were installed.

The new recall is to ensure every vehicle that did not have the faulty air bag inflators replaced in the April 2013 recall has the defect fixed.

Toyota Australia spokesperson Beck Angel says it is mainly the top-selling Corolla which is affected.

This year Toyota Australia has issued seven recalls, with the most recent being in April when it recalled 118,600 Yaris hatches and sedans due to potentially faulty seats along with 179,000 Hilux utes and 2050 Prado four-wheel drives because of a concern also relating to airbags.

Toyota has been in the spotlight in recent years due to a number of recalls affecting its vehicles. In March this year the Toyota paid a record $US1.2 billion to settle criminal charges in the United States for concealing defects.

The recalls, however, have done little to affect the Japanese car-maker’s sales with more new Toyotas bought than any other car brand last year in Australia and the Corolla being the best-selling car of 2013.

Toyota is not the only car-maker issuing recalls in recent days. Chrysler issued a recall last week for more than 400 Jeep Grand Cherokees due to a possible fault with the cruise control which may cause unintended acceleration.