Toyota and Nissan added 6.56 million vehicles to their global recalls to cover more vehicles fitted with air bags made by Takata Corp.
Toyota will recall about 5 million more cars involving 35 models manufactured from March 2003 to November 2007, according to an e-mail from the company. Nissan will call back 1.56 million and begin notifying customers in June, said Dion Corbett, a company spokesman.
The latest measure will add to the about 17 million vehicles that 10 automakers have recalled since 2008 for faulty air bags that have resulted in deaths and injuries. Toyota said Wednesday that certain types of airbag inflators were found to have potential for moisture intrusion and could be susceptible to abnormal deployment in a crash though the relationship between the two is not known.
“The biggest problem here is both carmakers and Takata have not specified the direct reason for the defect,” said Takeshi Miyao, an analyst at researcher Carnorama in Tokyo. “They can’t recall all the possible cars without knowing what the direct cause is as the costs are enormous and they don’t know which side should cover the costs.”
Honda Motor Co. is preparing additional recalls related to Takata air bags, Yuka Abe, a company spokeswoman, said Wednesday by telephone without providing details.
Six fatalities in Honda cars, including five in the U.S. and one in Malaysia, have been blamed on shrapnel from Takata air bags. At least 105 injuries are connected to the flaw, U.S. Senator Bill Nelson said last month.
Takata, which has forecast a return to profit this fiscal year, has said it’s unable to estimate the penalties from the lawsuits associated with the air bags and hasn’t set aside any amount to cover them as the cause of the defect is still being investigated.
Shares of Takata fell 1.6 percent to 1,602 yen at the close in Tokyo trading. The drop pared the stock’s gain this year to 9.7 percent, compared with the 13 percent advance in the Nikkei 225 Stock Average.
Toyota said it will replace the affected front driver-side air-bag inflators with newly manufactured parts produced by Daicel Corp. Takata will supply the replacements for front passenger-side air-bag inflators because compatible parts from a different supplier aren’t available, Toyota said.
Toyota said it isn’t aware of injuries or fatalities from the affected vehicles in Wednesday’s recall.
Nissan will recall vehicles manufactured from 2004 to 2007 and its dealers will test the inflators and replace as necessary, the company said in an e-mailed statement. The automaker has already recalled vehicles in regions with high humidity such as the Gulf Coast in the U.S. and inflators in these vehicles will be replaced without testing, it said.
Honda has recalled about 14.4 million models related to Takata air bags as of Wednesday, Abe, the company’s spokeswoman said.
Regulators in Japan and the U.S. are investigating Takata- made air-bag inflators that may malfunction, deploying with so much force that the part breaks and hurls metal shrapnel at the car’s occupants.
A group of 10 automakers hired aerospace and defense company Orbital ATK Inc. to test potentially faulty Takata air- bag inflators. The Japanese component maker has also commissioned German research group Fraunhofer Society to investigate the cause of air bag ruptures.
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