Honda expands air bag recall after Takata complies with U.S. order

By Chang-Ran Kim

TOKYO (Reuters) - Honda Motor Co called back about 690,000 cars in Japan and the United States to replace air bag inflators made by Takata Corp (7312.T) after the Tokyo-based parts supplier last week agreed to comply with U.S. orders to expand some of its previous recalls.

Honda, Japan's third-biggest automaker, disclosed the recall in filings in Tokyo and Washington.

Of the recalls announced on Thursday, about 350,000 are of vehicles registered in the United States and 340,000 are in Japan, Honda said.

Honda had just expanded its Takata-related recalls by nearly 5 million cars earlier this month to about 20 million vehicles worldwide since 2008. The move came after its own investigations found two new problems with inflators it had retrieved for sampling. The root cause of those defects is unknown.

In Canada, Honda did not widen previous recalls involving just over 700,000 vehicles, but will issue fresh correspondence reminding consumers of the safety issue, the company's Canadian branch said on Thursday.

Takata is at the centre of a global recall of tens of millions of cars 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.

After months of resisting, Takata last week agreed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to roughly double its U.S.-based recall to 34 million vehicles spanning 11 automakers, including more models and years of production.

Honda said the latest recall in Japan includes about 80,000 cars fitted with driver-side air bag inflators that had been part of a previous recall, but which had not yet been collected.

Another 260,000 cars would be added to replace passenger-side air bag inflators in Japan, with more to follow overseas, Honda said.

The automaker will source replacement inflators for the additional recalls from Takata, as well as rivals Autoliv Inc (ALV.N), TRW Automotive [TRWTA.UL], and Daicel Corp , it said. Earlier this year, Michigan-based TRW was acquired by Germany's ZF Friedrichshafen. [ZFF.UL]

(Additional reporting by Bernie Woodall in Detroit; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell and Matthew Lewis)