Toyota recalls 1.43 million vehicles for defective air bags

Toyota Motor Corp. announced late Tuesday it would recall 1.43 million of its Prius, Prius Plug-in Hybrid and Lexus CT 200h cars globally to replace airbags. Then early Wednesday, it announced it was recalling 2.87 million vehicles over a possible defect in emissions control units. Some 932,000 vehicles are involved in both recalls, so the total number of affected vehicles is 3.37 million.

The emissions control system affects models like Prius, Auris and Corolla models along with some other models manufactured between 2006 and 2015.

Toyota said cracks can develop in the coating of emissions control parts called the canister, possibly leading to fuel leaks.

Toyota New Zealand said today that 36,961 new and used import Toyota and Lexus models were being recalled due to a possible fault involving a charcoal canister fitted to fuel tanks. Autoliv said about 90 percent of the affected inflators were in Prius cars.

The reason for the recall is due to a faulty airbag inflator, as there could be a small crack on the weld, which in time could widen and could then fail.

The company said it was aware of seven incidents where a side curtain airbag has partially inflated in parked Toyota Prius cars, but no injuries were reported.

However, it said that the components that were in question were not made by Takata, the supplier of airbags at the center of the biggest safety recall in vehicle industry history. This issue has cropped up at a time when the world’s largest carmaker is already struggling with the recalls of the Takata scandal.

The problem with those vehicles is their airbags-not Takata’s fatally flawed frontal airbags, which have killed more than a dozen people worldwide and injured upwards of 100, but curtain airbags manufactured by Autoliv Inc. U.S.-traded shares of Toyota (TM) rose 0.6% to $100.45.