Toyota said it’s recalling about 3.4 million vehicles to repair separate flaws involving leaky fuel tanks and curtain air bags that may crack and injure occupants.
The larger fuel tank recall affects 2.87 million vehicles worldwide, including Prius hybrids and Corolla compacts, the company said in an email. Toyota said fuel emissions control canisters could crack and result in leaks when the vehicles have full tanks of gas.
The other global recall of 1.43 million Prius hybrids and Lexus CT compact cars is to repair Autoliv Inc.-supplied curtain air bags that have cracked and partially inflated in parked vehicles. About 932,000 vehicles are involved in both recalls, Toyota said.
The world’s largest automaker last month forecast about 150 billion yen ($1.47 billion) in increased quality-related expenses for the year ending in March 2017. The estimate factors into the company’s projection that operating income may plunge about 40 percent from the previous fiscal period. Toyota is among more than a dozen automakers involved in the unprecedented recall of over 100 million air bags made by Takata Corp.
Toyota said it isn’t aware of crashes, injuries or fatalities related to the curtain air bag or fuel tank flaws. Autoliv is aware of a handful of cases where air bags have partially inflated in parked Prius cars exposed to temperature swings, Thomas Joensson, a spokesman, said by phone.
An exact root cause of the air bag issue is unknown. Autoliv plunged as much as 16 percent and was down 5.7 percent as of 10:51 a.m. in Stockholm, compared with the 1.5 percent rise in the benchmark OMXS30 index.
The vehicles involved in the air-bag recall were produced from October 2008 to April 2012, and the cars with faulty fuel canisters were built between April 2006 and August 2015, Toyota said.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
