Japanese autos recall vehicles over faulty airbags
Globally, the Takata airbag forced recalls involving Toyota, Nissan and Honda since last week, with the world’s biggest car manufacturer, Toyota recalling about five million vehicles, while Nissan announced the recall of about 1.56 million vehicles owing to faulty airbags.
Toyota Nigeria Limited (TNL), a prominent brand in automotive industry, has also announced the recall of two of its fastest selling models, Yaris and Hilux, to fix those faults noticed with their airbags.
The Managing Director, Toyota Nigeria Limited, Mr. Kunle Ade-Ojo, made this known at a briefing in Lagos that the affected Yaris were those produced between 2003 and 2005, while the Hilux vehicles were those manufactured between 2003 and 2007.
According to Ade-ojo, the recall announcement was in line with the company’s concern for the continued safety of its customers and also disclosed that recalls of new vehicles have become a regular news item in the global auto industry in order to replace or fix faulty units, only Toyota Nigeria has extended the offer to its customers in the country.
“We are taking this urgent remedial action as a responsible organization whose public and customers’ safety is the soul of its business,” he said.
The TNL boss said the inflators of the affected vehicles had the potential of allowing moisture into the modules, which could lead to the inflators deploying abnormally, and while the fault in the Hilux affected the driver’s side alone, it affected both the driver and passengers’ sides in the Yaris.
Ade-Ojo also explained that the company has planned to check the modules and replace them in the recalled vehicles free of charge, especially for those vehicles purchased from any of its accredited dealers nationwide. He however said that the company had no estimate of the number of vehicles with the faulty airbags.
He said the airbags were manufactured by Takata, one of the world’s leading suppliers of airbag systems, who also manufactures airbags for other auto brands.
According to the TNL boss, not all the units manufactured within those periods had problems, however, the company was willing to fix other Toyota vehicles purchased from the grey market with similar problems, provided the manufacturers contacts the company for support.
According to the United Kingdom’s Mirror report, 1.27 million Toyota vehicles in Europe were affected in the latest recall.
Toyota GB said the UK cars involved would be tested and new airbag inflators would also be fitted if necessary, but the company said that there had been no injuries involving its vehicles.
A spokesman for the company said, “We have been conducting various investigations on the Takata-produced airbag inflators. Among the parts collected from the Japanese market, certain types of airbag inflators were found to have a potential for moisture intrusion over time. As a result, they could be susceptible to abnormal deployment in a crash. The relationship of moisture intrusion, if any, to the risk of inflator rupture is not known.”
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