KUALA LUMPUR, May 21 – Honda Malaysia Sdn Bhd will recall 87,182 units of its cars sold here to replace the driver and passenger airbag inflators, as part of its global recall programme to fix faulty air bags.
Honda Motor Co, the automaker most affected by the safety crisis involving faulty air bags, has already said it will expand its global recall by an additional 4.89 million vehicles. The total recall tally for Honda is about 19.6 million vehicles, according to figures from the company.
Toyota Motor Corp announced a similar recall of about 5 million cars, while Nissan Motor Co said it will call back 1.56 million.
In Malaysia the automaker’s local unit said today the units are the City (year of manufacture from 2003 to 2008); Civic (2003 to 2008); CR-V (2002 to 2007); Jazz (2004 to 2006), Stream (2004 to 2005).
“Honda Malaysia deeply regrets the inconvenience caused to all affected customers. The precautionary efforts do not affect Honda’s current selling models,” it said.
Honda Malaysia said all customers involved will be informed.
The safety crisis plaguing the global automotive industry has deepened after Japan’s three biggest carmakers said they would recall at least 6.5 million more vehicles because of faulty air bags that send shrapnel into passengers.
Toyota Motor Corp will recall about 5 million more cars involving 35 models manufactured from March 2003 to November 2007, after finding air-bag inflators in Japan that could be susceptible to abnormal deployment in a crash, according to an e-mail from the company. Nissan Motor Co will call back 1.56 million, and begin notifying customers in June, said Dion Corbett, a company spokesman.
The latest safety campaigns add to the more than 17 million vehicles that 10 automakers have recalled since 2008 for faulty air bags made by Takata Corp Regulators in Japan and the US are investigating Takata air-bag inflators that can deploy with too much force, breaking up metal and plastic parts and hurling them at car occupants.
Nissan said the inflators involved in the latest recall were made at Takata’s Monclova plant in Mexico, which also manufactured devices called back in previous safety campaigns.
Toyota said the latest recalls were triggered by investigations into a ruptured air-bag inflator recovered from a scrapped car at a salvage yard in Japan in November 2014. Air leaks were found that could allow moisture to seep into the device and cause the propellant to deteriorate, according to Kaya Doi, a Toyota spokeswoman.
Six fatalities in Honda cars, including five in the US and one in Malaysia, have been blamed on shrapnel from Takata air bags. At least 105 injuries are connected to the flaw, US Senator Bill Nelson said last month.
