Takata airbags in Australia being recalled after being 'fixed'

48,000 Toyota cars in Australia have been recalled for a second time to fix replacement airbags for the previously faulty Takata airbags. Photo / 123RF

Australian woman Jane Toakley is a model "recall citizen". She should be, she's had a lot of experience.

Her 2011 Corolla Hatch has been the subject of three recalls in the past two years. In July 2016 it was recalled on a leaking fuel tank issue, then in December 2017 it was subject to the worldwide Takata airbag recall. Most recently — in March this year — she received another letter regarding a recall on the previous airbag recall.

A Toyota Australia spokesperson confirmed in a statement that Toakley was not alone in having her car recalled again after the Takata airbag was "repaired" in the first national recall of the product.

The spokesperson said 48,000 Toyota cars have been recalled for a second time, with a letter sent to affected customers indicating their repair may have been installed incorrectly.

The Herald contacted Toyota New Zealand, who confirmed that they are not aware of any incorrectly installed replacement airbags on Toyota vehicles in New Zealand.

For context, Toyota and Lexus are just two of the brands affected by the worldwide Takata recall issue.

In Australia, these two brands alone have recalled over 580,000 cars in the original Takata recall. There around three million cars across all brands affected in Australia.

Out of that number, Toyota have replaced around 416,000 airbags (around 71 per cent of their affected cars).

But 48,000 of those 416,000 customers received the second recall notice (around 11 per cent).

Jane Toakley believes customers should be compensated, or at least given courtesy cars when their car is recalled. Photo / Supplied

"The second recall is in relation to the possibility that incorrectly fitted passenger front airbags pose a risk to drivers if deployed, due to the likelihood the airbags would not fully inflate," it said.

Toyota would not provide any more information on how the recalled airbags came to be fitted incorrectly despite repeated questioning by news.com.au.

They did state, however, that the second recall was "not related to 'like for like' replacements under the Takata recall campaign".

With the original Takata airbag recall now affecting across upwards of 4 million Australian cars across a number of brands, it's edifying to plot out what the actual experience of being recalled multiple times is like. For the average car owner the experience is inconvenient enough that it will go to the bottom of a daily "to-do" list.

Toakley's ongoing experiences are a testament to that.