Toyota recalls 1.7 million vehicles over air bag inflators

Toyota Motor stated Wednesday it is recalling another 1.7 million vehicles globally for potentially defective Takata air bag inflators as part of a multi-year industry recall campaign declared in 2016.

Automakers are including about 10 million vehicle inflators in the United States to what is already known as the largest-ever recall campaign in history. Last week, Ford Motor stated it was recalling 953,000 vehicles worldwide for Takata inflators. Earlier, 37 million U.S. vehicles with 50 million inflators were recalled and 16.7 million inflators are still yet to be replaced.

At least 23 deaths have been linked to the rupturing of defective Takata air bag inflators, and about 15 occured in the United States.

Toyota’s new recall associates to vehicles from the 2010 through 2015 model years, and consists of 1.3 million vehicles in the United States.

Over 290 injuries globally have been connected to Takata inflators that could explode, spraying metal shrapnel inside automobiles. Overall, 19 automakers are recalling over 100 million potentially defective inflators worldwide.

To this day, 21 deaths have been reported in Honda Motor vehicles and two in Ford vehicles. Both automakers have prompted some drivers of older vehicles not to drive them before the inflators are replaced.

The problem led Takata to file for bankruptcy protection in June 2017. In April, auto components maker Key Safety Systems finished a $1.6 billion deal to acquire Takata. The merged company, called Joyson Safety Systems, is a subsidiary of Ningbo Joyson Electronic.

Automakers in the United States fixed over 7.2 million faulty Takata air bag inflators in last year as companies ramped up efforts to track down components in need of replacement, according to a report released previous month.