44,989 units of the Toyota Innova to be recalled in India

Toyota India has announced recall of 44,989 units of its most successful car in India, the Innova. The company says that a faulty spiral cable mounted on the steering wheel is the reason for this recall. It has only been found on Innovas manufactured from February 2005 to December 2008.

"This (error) will lead to continuous illumination of an airbag warning lamp on the instrument cluster giving prior indication of a problem to the customer. In addition, the driver's airbag may get deactivated," the company said in a statement.

Toyota is currently working on obtaining the necessary replacement parts for the faulty Innovas. The company says that once the replacement parts are available, customers will be contacted by the authorized Toyota dealers and the vehicle will then be repaired free of cost. The repair should take about an hour’s time according to Toyota. 

The recall is a part of a global exercise by Toyota as it plans to fix 6.58 million vehicles around the world suffering from faults in steering and seats. This will be one of the largest vehicle recalls to date in the global auto industry.

This news comes in as only today we have learnt that Maruti too is likely to issue a recall for the Swift and Dzire for fuel cap and fuel pipe related faults. It is good to see manufacturers announcing these defects as recalls are still voluntary and not mandatory. Other manufacturers should see this as a brand confidence building measure as well.