Daimler AG recalling more than one million Mercedes-Benz vehicles

Daimler AG is recalling more than a million vehicles due to problems with an airbag. Photo / AP

Daimler AG is recalling more than 1 million Mercedes-Benz cars and sport utility vehicles worldwide to address potential unintended airbag deployments, the German carmaker said on Monday.

The safety recall covers 495,000 vehicles in the United States, 400,000 in Britain, 76,000 in Canada and a few hundred thousand in Germany, company officials said.

An electrostatic discharge, coupled with a broken clock spring and insufficient grounding of steering components, can lead to inadvertent deployment of the driver side front airbag in vehicles subject to the recall, the company said, according to the South China Morning Post.

As part of the fix, it said dealers would add new grounding to the steering components.

A Mercedes-Benz spokeswoman in the United States said there had been "a handful of instances where drivers suffered minor abrasions or bruises" due to the airbag problem.

No deaths have been reported and the issue is not related to the massive recall of Takata airbag inflators worldwide.

The recalls covers some 2012-2018 model year A, B, C, and E-Class models and CLA, GLA and GLC vehicles. The product recall will begin in the coming weeks when the new component to fix the problem is available.

A Mercedes spokesman said the notice concerned cars sold between November 2011 and July 2017.

The spokesman added that the recall was not linked to Honda's recent recall of more than 245,000 vehicles in China over concerns about airbags made by troubled Japanese giant Takata.

- South China Morning Post