Toyota is urging the owners of 50,000 older vehicles to not get behind the wheel of their cars, as an airbag issue could cause serious injuries if not fixed immediately.
In a recall statement issued online, Toyota shared that the vehicles should not be driven until their faulty airbags have been repaired or replaced in the following vehicles:
— 2003-04 Corolla
— 2003-04 Corolla Matrix
— 2004-05 RAV4
“Owners SHOULD NOT DRIVE these vehicles until the FREE safety recall repair has been conducted,” Toyota said in the statement.
The issue in the vehicles stems from the age of the airbags, which could see a part inside explode and shoot sharp metal fragments at the driver and passengers, Toyota shared.
Because of the risk of severe injury and even death, the car manufacturer is recommending that owners not drive the vehicles until they get them fixed, which they can do by contacting their local dealer to arrange a number of options, like performing a mobile repair or towing the car to the dealership.
The car manufacturer did not share in its notice if any injuries or deaths stemmed from the airbag issues.
However, since May 2009, at least 26 people have died in the country from the airbags — which are the Takata brand, a Japanese company sent into bankruptcy after its airbags were found to be faulty.
The recall from Toyota comes almost a month after it recalled about 1 million cars in the United States because of issues with the front passenger airbags not deploying properly during crashes.
To see if your vehicle is part of the recall, visit Toyota.com/recall or nhtsa.gov/recalls.
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