Eight automakers announced Friday that they will recall more than 12 million vehicles in the U.S.to replace the potentially unsafe airbags, which can rupture and blast shrapnel into vehicles.
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Documents posted on Friday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) detailed recalls by Honda, Fiat Chrysler, Toyota, Mazda, Nissan, Subaru, Ferrari and Mitsubishi. While this recall added no new vehicles in Canada as they were already subject to earlier Takata driver airbag inflator recalls, there are approximately 2.2 million new vehicles added to the Takata inflator recall in the United States.
Japanese authorities on Friday ordered a recall of an additional 7 million cars fitted with potentially unsafe Takata airbags as the supplier pursues a restructuring amid its global crisis. Some Pontiac and Saab vehicles are also affected.
Separately, Takata is in bailout talks with a number of potential investors including private equity firm KKR & Co (KKR.N), a source told Reuters on Thursday.
The transport ministry said Friday it has instructed automakers to notify it of the widened recalls no later than the end of fiscal year through March 2019. The 12 million US -market vehicles involved in this new recall, coupled with the 7 million affected in Japan, bring that total to nearly 70 million globally.
Like the latest USA recall, the Japan recall covers passenger-side airbags, but the Japanese transport ministry wouldn’t comment on which automakers were affected.
Required replacement parts may not become available until late-Summer 2016.
Automakers face challenges obtaining enough replacement parts and getting owners to fix their cars.
Under a November agreement with NHTSA, it agreed to phase out the volatile chemical ammonium nitrate used in the recalled inflators.
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In November, the company agreed to pay a US$70-million fine for safety violations, and it faces an ongoing USA criminal investigation as well as several class-action lawsuits.
