U.S. agency warns car owners to get air bags fixed

DETROIT - A potential crisis over defective air bags widened Monday as the U.S. government issued an urgent plea to more than 4.7 million people to get their cars fixed.

The inflator mechanisms in the air bags can rupture, causing metal fragments to fly out when the bags are inflated in crashes.

Safety advocates say at least four people have died from the problem and there have been multiple injuries. They also say more than 20 million vehicles in the United States are equipped with the faulty air bags.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration warned people whose cars have been recalled during the last two years for faulty air-bag inflators to take them to dealers right away. The inflators are made by Takata Corp., a Tokyo-based supplier of seat belts, air bags, steering wheels and other auto parts. So far, automakers have recalled about 12 million vehicles worldwide because of the problem.

"This message comes with urgency," NHTSA said in a statement. The agency has been investigating the problem since June, and has cited six related injuries.

The warning covers cars made by Toyota, Honda, Mazda, BMW, Nissan, General Motors, and Ford.

Toyota issued the latest recall Monday, covering 247,000 older-model vehicles including the Lexus SC, Corolla, Matrix, Sequoia, and Tundra.

Like many of the other recalls, the Toyota recall covers vehicles in South Florida, along the Gulf Coast, in Puerto Rico, Hawaii, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Marianas and American Samoa - all areas that have high absolute humidity. Toyota, in documents posted on the NHTSA website, said the company and Takata are trying to pinpoint the cause of the rupture and to gauge the influence of high absolute humidity.

Absolute humidity is a measurement of water vapor in the air, while relative humidity, which is commonly used in weather reports, measures air moisture content relative to the air temperature.

Toyota has been testing the air bags, and found an unusually high incidence of inflator failures along the coasts, according to spokesman John Hanson. The investigation continues and the recall could be expanded to more areas, Hanson said.

Toyota says it knows of no crashes or injuries from the cars it has recalled.

Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, estimated that there are from 20 million to 25 million cars in the U.S. alone that are equipped with the faulty air bags.