On Thursday, the big three carmakers of Japan announced that a recall of more than 3 million vehicles will take place around the world because of defects the air bag system has on the passenger side of the vehicles.
Takata Corp, a Japanese company manufactures the air bag system in question for the three big Japanese carmakers Honda, Toyota and Nissan. Toyota is recalling the largest number of vehicles at 1.7 million. Included in that amount are 580,000 recalled in different parts of North America, over 490,0000 throughout Europe and at home in Japan more than 320,000 vehicles.
Toyota’s models affected by the air bag recall are the Lexus SC, Corolla and the Tundra. The models that were built between November of 2000 and March of 2004 are being recalled.
Nissan’s total number of vehicles being recalled is 480,000 of which 137,000 are in Japan and the balance of 343,000 are scattered around the globe in different countries. One car analyst said that Mazda also had cars included in the recall but that the total was just 45,000, however nothing official was released by the automaker.
A Toyota Motor spokesperson said an inflator that might malfunction and deploy the bags inadvertently in the vehicle’s front seat or activate the automatic seatbelts in the vehicle was why the vehicles were being recalled.
