Toyota to recall 6.4 million cars

Toyota is recalling 6.4 million vehicles globally, including 35,124 in the UK, over five separate issues.

Some 3.5 million vehicles are being recalled to replace a spiral cable attached to the driver's side airbag, it may be damaged when the steering wheel is turned and result in the airbag not being deployed in a crash.

Other issues include problems with seat rails, steering columns, windscreen wipers and a glitch with the engine starters that poses a fire risk.

What is going on a Toyota? Is there an internal competition between the different departments as to who can make the most unreliable car and who can score the most number of recalls?

There has to be because this is the fifth major recall Toyota has issued in recent months and this latest one affects 27 different models, and I love the casual explanations offered to the problems, oh yeah there’s a ‘glitch’ that means some of our models may catch fire when you start them, and in some models the airbag may or may not deploy if you crash it all depends on which way the steering wheel is facing at the time, but don’t worry we’ll get them back to the same factory where they were made and fix the problems.

Then I read something that really surprised me, in the last two and a half years Toyota has recalled more than 25 million vehicles, yet in the same time period they’ve sold just over 21 million cars, so in the last two and a half years they’ve recalled more cars than they’ve sold.

What really gets me about all this is that Toyota will continue to churn out cars and make billions even though the cars they're making have clearly not been built properly and are putting people’s lives at risk.