Japanese automakers recall 3.4m units

Four Japanese automakers, led by Toyota and Honda, said dangerous airbags had prompted the recall of 3.4 million vehicles. Toyota said it would recall 1.7 million vehicles and Honda 1.1 million. Nissan and Mazda were recalling 480,000 and 45,000 vehicles, respectively, CNNMoney reported Thursday. General Motors planned to recall 48,000 2003 Pontiac Vibes in the United States and 7,000 in Canada, while BMW the Detroit News reported. BMW also said it would recall some models. Honda said inflators for passenger-side airbags "may deploy with too much pressure, which may cause the inflator casing to rupture and could result in injury." Toyota said it had received five reports of airbags that failed to work properly while Honda said it received a report of one crash in which the airbag malfunctioned. Separately, Toyota and Honda said they did not know of any injuries or deaths associated with the airbags, which were made by Takata Corp., a Japanese firm. For Toyota, the recall is the third involving more than a million cars in just a few years. In 2009 and 2010, accelerator problems prompted the recall of more than 8 million vehicles. In October 2012, Toyota recalled 7.4 million units due to problem with power windows that involved a risk of fire.