Honda expands Takata air bag recall by 340,000 cars in Japan

[TOKYO] Honda Motor Co said on Thursday it was recalling about 340,000 more cars in Japan to replace air bag inflators made by top supplier Takata Corp .

Details for recalls elsewhere were not immediately available, a Honda spokesman said.

Takata is at the centre of a recall of tens of millions of cars around the world for potentially deadly air bag inflators that could deploy with too much force and spray metal fragments inside vehicles. Regulators have linked six deaths to the component so far, all on Honda's cars.

Honda had just expanded its Takata-related recalls by nearly 5 million cars earlier this month after its own investigations found two new problems with inflators it had retrieved for sampling. The root cause of the defect is unknown.

REUTERS