Toyota issues recall order on 1.43 million vehicles due to defects in airbag inflator

Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp. on Wednesday issued a global recall on 1.43 million of its top-selling hybrid Prius models and its high-end Lexus CT200h hybrid sports hatchbacks due to a possible defect in the models' airbag inflator.

The Aichi-based automaker said that the recall will span 743,000 vehicles in Japan, 495,000 in its North American and Mexican markets and cover 141,000 models in Europe.

The recall also includes the Prius plug-in models, Toyota said.

Toyota said in the vehicles being recalled, specifically those produced between October 2008 and April 2012, it is possible that there is a crack in a weld in the airbag inflator that could lead to the inflator chambers separating and the bags partially inflating, with the inflator itself being discharged into the vehicles' interior.

The defect is more likely to occur in vehicles that have been stationary or parked for a long period of time, a spokesperson for Toyota said.

As yet, however, Toyota said that no deaths or injuries have been reported as a result of the latest airbag-related saga, and noted that the airbag inflators involved in the latest recall were not produced by embattled Takata Corp.

Takata Corp., also a Japanese firm, has been central to wide scale global recalls on vehicles with faulty airbag inflators, spanning millions of vehicles and costing automakers billions of dollars in retrofitting and compensation.

Takata's Chief Executive Officer, Shigehisa Takada, on Tuesday said he would step down to account for Takata's massive failings, once the firm has carved out a recovery path to navigate away from its involvement in the biggest recall of vehicles in the history of the industry.

Toyota itself, due to but also separately from Takata, has been mired in recall issues in recent times, including the recall of 6.5 million vehicles worldwide in October owing to a power window glitch that could potential trigger fires.

Toyota also doubled a recall order over faulty airbags to nearly 34 million vehicles last year, in a record-breaking recall move prior to the window glitch.

In 2014, the world's largest automaker also issued a recall on 1.9 million of its ubiquitous Prius hybrids, due to a computer problem that could cause the vehicle to suddenly stop without warning. Enditem