Toyota has recently issued a recall for 2.9 million cars across Japan, China, Oceania and other regions, including India to replace faulty Takata airbags. It is said that about 23,000 Toyota Corolla Altis that were sold in India are also a part of this global recall. But, when we asked Toyota India about it, the company denied this saying that they were still awaiting an update from Toyota Global about the models affected in India. The affected cars feature potentially faulty airbag inflators manufactured by Takata and propellant devices that may deploy improperly in the event of a crash, shooting metal fragments into vehicle occupants.
Global transport authorities are saying that the Takata inflators, which contain the chemical compound ammonium nitrate, could be unsafe if used without a drying agent. Thus they have ordered all of about 100 million airbags in the market to be withdrawn.
Around 42 million vehicles are potentially affected in the US alone, in addition to the 7 million and counting that have been recalled worldwide. While earlier in January Honda had issued a recall for over 40,000 vehicles, but it was clearly not of this magnitude. Toyota said recalls were issued for about 1.16 million vehicles sold in Oceania, the Middle East and the automaker's smaller markets, while about 750,000 vehicles had been recalled in Japan.
As for the 23,000 units of the Corolla Altis sedan that are said to have been called back in India, these were manufactured between 2010 and 2012. Agencies' reports say that the company will inform the customers of the exercise and the recall will be done free-of-cost.
