Toyota USA to recall Land Cruiser, Tacoma and Lexus LX570 over faulty parts

MANILA: More often than not, the recalling of vehicles is considered to be a very wise and appreciated move by automakers. And hence, recalling the affected models, with the pettiest issues, has become very common.

One of the latest to join the list is a major recall made by Toyota USA. The recall is for around 134,000 units, pickups and SUVs combined relating to issues on the brake and airbags. First up, 87,900 units of  Toyota Land Cruiser and the Lexus LX570s that include model years between 2008 and 2019.

The problems in these vehicles, as mentioned by Toyota USA, is pertaining to the airbag and safety-related systems. To elaborate things further, there might be a malfunction of the seat belt tension sensors. This may affect the airbag warning lights and in worst cases, the problem may cause the deactivation of the airbags for the front occupants, knees and passenger seat-mounted. With this, the fatality in an accident would increase.

Apart from the Land Cruiser and Lexus LX570, 44,000 affected vehicle is Toyota Tacoma pickup from the 2018 and 2019 model years. The pickup truck has a faulty brake master cylinder, which may get damaged with wear-and-tear and cause the fluid to leak internally. And if this happens, the braking performance will be hampered and the stopping distance can be increased significantly.

The affected vehicles are exported to the USA from Japan, it becomes quite intriguing to know whether the models sold in the Philippines are affected or not. However, TMP (Toyota Motor Philippines) has clarified that the vehicles built for the US market have been affected only and does not include the ones sold here.

Toyota USA will start shooting recall emails to the owners by February 2019 for the Land Cruiser and LX570, while the process for Tacoma will start from January itself. For the latter, the dealerships will replace the old brake master cylinder with a new unit free of cost.