Takata Airbag Recall Expands to 7 Million Units Worldwide

A new recall of 650,000 Toyota Motor Corp. cars in Japan boosts the total number of vehicles equipped with faulty airbag systems from Takata Corp. to about 7 million worldwide, Reuters reports.

Takata concedes its records are inadequate and warns that new recalls by multiple carmakers may be necessary to replace the malfunctioning devices.

Last year BMW, General Motors, Honda, Mazda, Nissan and Toyota recalled some 3.6 million vehicles worldwide because their Takata-supplied front-seat passenger airbag system contained inflators that could explode in a crash. Most of the involved vehicles were built during the 2001-2004 model years.

The record-high recall cost the Tokyo-based supplier 30 billion yen ($306 million) and pushed the company into a record loss of 21 billion yen ($295 million) in fiscal 2012-2013.

Reuters notes that Takata has been struggling to verify the extent of the inflator problem. The company says the defective propellant wafers were produced between 2000 and 2002 at its factories in the U.S. and Mexico.

Until Toyota's newly expanded recall, some 6.5 million vehicles equipped with Takata airbags about half of them Honda models had been recalled in the past five years.

The recall total may continue to grow. Toyota says it is revisiting its global airbag recall last year and will tell dealers to replace all Takata inflators in affected cars. Under the original campaign, dealers inspected but didn't replace inflators that appeared normal.