Chrysler Group announced that it will recall 840,000 vehicle (mopstly) in the United States and other countries around the world, because of possible flaws with active-restraint head rests, airbags and electronic stability control systems. The Detroit-based carmaker issued five separate recall actions, including nearly 500,000 cars and SUVs for the head rest issue and another 282,000 minivans with possible faulty airbags.
The 490,000 cars and SUVs have potentially faulty microcomputer components for headrests that are designed to move forward during rear-end impacts to mitigate neck injuries. The recall affects 2011-2013 Chrysler Sebring, Chrysler 200, Dodge Avenger and Jeep Liberty vehicles, as well as 2011-2012 Dodge Nitro SUVs. 442,000 vehicles are in the U.S., 25,000 in Canada, 10,000 in Mexico and 12,000 outside North America.
“The potentially faulty microcontrollers were installed in a supplied component. They entered the supply chain after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused a worldwide microcontroller shortage,” Chrysler said in a statement. The carmaker will fix the vehicles by upgrading a power module or the “occupant restraint control module.”
The 282,000 model year 2013 minivans will be recalled because a side airbag software component was not programmed correctly and this may affect proper deployment. Affected models include the 2013 Dodge Caravan, Chrysler Town & Country and Ram Cargo Van.
Chrysler also issued a recall for 69,000 2013MY Ram 1500 pickup trucks that may have an electronic stability control software glitch.
In a separate and unrelated action, Toyota issued a recall for 185,000 cars worldwide, mostly Yaris and Verso-S models. The cause for the recall is a glitch in the electric power steering system, which could make the steering heavier.
Affected models are Yaris vehicles (called Vitz in Japan) made between November 2010 to March 2012 and also Verso-S models (known as the Ractis in Japan) built from August 2010 to August 2011. About 130,000 of these cars are from Japan, 7,050 from Germany and 7,000 from France.
By Dan Mihalascu
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