Toyota Recalls 2.27 Million Vehicles Over Airbag Defect

TOKYO -- Toyota (IW 1000/8) on Wednesday recalled 2.27 million vehicles globally over a defect that could see airbags fail to deploy in a crash and also posed a fire risk, dealing another blow to the Japanese giant's safety record.

The world's biggest automaker said the latest callback involved 20 models, including its Corolla sedan, Yaris subcompact and Noah minivan, and covered about 1.62 million cars overseas and 650,000 in Japan.

Some of the affected overseas cars were already included in a recall last year but had not had their airbag inflator replaced, Toyota said.

"The involved vehicles were equipped with front passenger airbag inflators which could have been assembled with improperly manufactured propellant wafers," the company said in a statement. "[That] could cause the inflator to rupture and the front passenger airbag to deploy abnormally in the event of a crash."

As part of the settlement, the automaker admitted that it lied when it insisted that it had addressed the "root cause" of the problem by fixing floor mats that could trap the accelerator.

In the United States, General Motors has been sideswiped by accusations that it hid a decade-long ignition and airbag problem linked to 13 deaths.

On Tuesday, GM chief executive Mary Barra said the company has not yet figured out how much its deadly, faulty car ignitions will cost the Chevrolet and Cadillac maker.

GM has already set aside $1.7 billion to cover some of the costs of recalling 2.6 million cars with the problem ignition switches, Barra said at the company's annual shareholders meeting.

But it faces the possibility of having to spend billions more to answer lawsuits from car owners and victims of crashes tied to the ignition problem, as well as their relatives.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2014