Toyota is recalling even more cars across its three brands. The automaker just announced last Monday that 1,584,000 cars in the US are affected in the ever-expanding Takata airbag recall scandal. The cars from Toyota, Scion and Lexus all suffer from defective Takata airbags.
The airbags, as CNET reported, explode in shrapnel instead of inflating to protect passengers. As for affected car owners, they will be notified via mail if their cars are included in the latest round of recalls. Car owners part of the recall should not expect car parts to be available for all vehicles at the same time as well.
The repair itself will require a replacement of the inflator or, even worse, the whole airbag assembly. Whether an affected car will require just a new inflator or not is wholly dependent on the car's model and year.
Cars included in the latest recall are the 2006-2011 Toyota Yaris, 2009-2011 Toyota Corolla and Matrix, 2010-2011 Toyota 4Runner and 2011 Toyota Sienna. Scion is included but only the 2008-2011 Scion xB. Lastly, Lexus cars included in the recall are the 2006-2011 Lexus IS, 2007-2011 Lexus ES and rounding it up is the 2010-2011 Lexus GX.
It is worth noting that not every single Toyota car falling under this range of vehicles is included in the recall. It is more likely that certain batches of build dates of the cars require new airbags. The Toyota website will allow owners to input their vehicle information number (VIN) and see if their cars are indeed part of the recall.
Car and Driver reported that Toyota dealers will only be able to service the recalled vehicles at a later date—possibly in many months from now. Factors that affect this include the state where the vehicle is located as well as the availability of spare parts.
In total, 26.4 million cars from 25 carmakers required recalls for defective Takata airbags.
