Toyota to recall 885,000 vehicles over airbag safety

Toyota will recall 885,000 vehicles to fix an airbag problem which could impact on driver safety.

The automaker says that the latest recall notice in a string of vehicle problems is due to an issue which could cause water leaks from the air conditioning unit. This water, in turn, could make its way into the airbag control module -- which would trigger a warning light and short circuit.

Once this happens, some airbags may "become disabled or could inadvertently deploy," and power steering could also be disabled.

Toyota's Camry, Camry Hybrid, Avalon, Avalon Hybrid, and Venza models, manufactured in 2012 and 2013, are affected. The majority of the recalled cars -- 847,000 -- are now owned by U.S. customers, while the remainder are in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

A spokeswoman for Toyota told the BBC that the automaker knows of two minor injuries caused by the flaw, but no crashes have been reported.

The Japanese firm has been forced to issue a number of recall notices this year. Last month, 780,000 vehicles were brought back to the garage for a second time after repairs to correct a handling problem failed. In September, Toyota recalled 615,000 Sienna minivans with shift lever issues, and in April, Toyota was forced to recall 1.73 million cars due to airbag inflator ruptures.

In total, Toyota's recall rate over the past two years has reached almost 20 million cars, which appears to have damaged the firm's reputation and as a result, sales of Toyota vehicles have fallen in recent times.

Via: BBC

Image credit: Toyota

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com