Toyota recalls 1.37M more vehicles for airbags

DETROIT (Reuters) -- Toyota Motor Corp. said today it will increase the number of U.S. recalls involving potentially deadly front passenger-side airbags made by Takata Corp. by almost 1.37 million vehicles.

The expansion pushes the total number of Toyota vehicles covered by Takata recalls in the United States to more than 2.9 million.

Some Takata airbags have opened with too much force, sending shrapnel into the vehicle. U.S. safety officials, as well as Takata officials, have said that exposure to humidity over time has been a factor in the erroneous airbag deployments.

Toyota said the latest recall includes these models: about 1,365,000 2003-2007 Corolla and Corolla Matrix; 2005-2006 Tundra; 2005-2007 Sequoia; and 2003-2007 Lexus SC430 vehicles. 

Seven deaths linked to Takata airbags have occurred in Honda Motor Co. cars, six of them in the United States.

On Monday, Honda announced the recall of 1.39 million Accord and Civic cars in the United States with faulty front passenger-side Takata airbags. Those cars had previously been recalled for front driver-side airbags.

Last month, U.S. safety officials said Takata had doubled its recall of vehicles in the United States to 34 million, and to 53 million globally. Automakers said the number of vehicles affected in the United States is likely half of that total because some have been recalled several times.

There have been 24 incidents of incorrect deployments of Takata airbags in Toyota vehicles worldwide, and Toyota has received at least eight reports of injuries said to be linked to airbag ruptures, a Toyota spokeswoman said today. Toyota officials have not confirmed those injuries were linked to incorrect deployments, she said.

She said that Toyota is not aware of any injuries or fatalities caused by incorrect airbag deployments in the vehicles in the expanded recall it announced today.