Toyota recalls 2.9M SUVs over seat belts

Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp. said Tuesday, July 28, 2015 it sold 5.02 million vehicles in the first six months of this year, down 1.5 percent from the same period the previous year, as sales struggled especially in the languishing Japanese market.

RAV4 vehicles built between August 2005 and November 2012 are affected by the recall, triggered by the discovery of a “potential issue with both outboard seat belts of the second row seats”, Toyota Australia said in a statement on Thursday. Dealers will install resin covers for the metal seat frames at no cost to the consumer.

It could not determine whether these incidents were linked to any injuries or fatalities.

Toyota has recalled RAV4s, including the 2013 model pictured here, due to a problem wiith the rear seatbelts.

Rear seat belts in the vehicles could be cut by metal seat-cushion frames in severe front crashes and fail to restrain passengers, she said.

Toyota stated that it could not validate whether the seatbelt failure had paved the way for the death, which materialized in a crash in Canada, but the company was recalling the automobiles as a safety measure.

One-point-three million of them were sold in North America.

Specifically, it affects aproximately 1.3 million vehicles in the U.S., 625,000 in Europe and 434,000 in China consisting of 2006-2012 RAV4’s and 2012-2014 RAV4 EV’s.

The repairs will take approximately 60 minutes but customers will be asked to book their cars in for an appointment once the parts become available.