Toyota to recall another 5.8m cars

Toyota will recall another 5.8 million cars over potentially faulty airbag inflators made by Takata, reports Automotive News. The recall affects about 1.47 million vehicles sold in Europe, about 820,000 cars sold in China and a further 1.6 million vehicles sold in Japan. Cars in Central and South America, Africa, Singapore, and the Near and Middle East are also affected by the recall. Toyota is recalling the Corolla compact car, the Yaris/Vitz subcompact, the Hilux pick-up and its Etios line of sedans and hatchbacks. The carmaker said in email that the recall covers driver-side and passenger-side airbags installed in cars between May 2000 and November 2001, as well as April 2006 and December 2014. The faulty inflators use a chemical compound which can explode with excessive force after prolonged exposure to hot conditions. They have been linked to at least 16 deaths around the world. The recall also includes about 20,000 cars that were fitted with replacement inflators following a recall in 2010. As the replacement parts don’t contain a drying agent, they are also seen to be at risk of exploding. Transport authorities around the world now consider inflators without a drying agent unsafe, and have ordered all of them to be recalled. Since the recall was expanded in May, around 100 million Takata airbag inflators have been classified as defective worldwide.