Massive recall of 3.4 million Japanese carmakers’ vehicles

If I wrote a post for every recall out there I would be doing nothing else, but when there is one of this magnitude, covering both trucks and cars, I try to keep you informed. 

This one is interesting because it shows how much a problem can be created when one supplier serving many carmakers screws up.  You can’t blame the car manufacturer this time, since it is for a faulty passenger side airbag inflator.  Takata Corporation, the world’s second largest maker of airbags and seatbelts, was the supplier to all of the affected manufacturer, and I suspect that they will be taking the major financial hit.  The faulty airbags were manufactured in Mexico.

Toyota was the hardest hit with an estimate of 1.73-million vehicles; Honda is recalling 1.14 million; Nissan – 480,000 and Mazda with 45,463.  All of the recalled vehicles had airbags made between 2000 and 2003.

Toyota, which is in the unhappy position of having the most recalls in the last decade, says that this one affects the Corolla, Tundra, Yaris and Camry vehicles; and affected Nissan models include the Maxima and The Cube.  For Honda, the affected vehicles include Civic, CR-V and Odyssey mini-vans.  

As with some previous recalls that I reported, the problem with this major undertaking is that a large percentage of the vehicles are no longer owned by the original owner making it impossible to track the affected vehicles.  If you know or suspect that a vehicle is in that 2001 – 2003 bracket encourage the owner to take the vehicle to a dealer for that brand.

If nothing is wrong, chalk it up to better safe than sorry; but if a repair needs to be made it will be done at no charge by the dealer.