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Alert your grandma: Toyota recalls 2016 Avalon, Camry for airbag issue

You probably don't want airbags that fail to deploy at the correct time.

Andrew Krok Reviews Editor / Cars
Cars are Andrew's jam, as is strawberry. After spending years as a regular ol' car fanatic, he started working his way through the echelons of the automotive industry, starting out as social-media director of a small European-focused garage outside of Chicago. From there, he moved to the editorial side, penning several written features in Total 911 Magazine before becoming a full-time auto writer, first for a local Chicago outlet and then for CNET Cars.
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Andrew Krok

Even when it doesn't involve a company named Takata, airbag issues are quite serious, and their recalls should be taken seriously. I've already written about one airbag recall today, but, what do you know, there's a second one in the news, as well.

Toyota's recalling just under 17,000 vehicles for an airbag issue. The recall covers two sedans, the 2016 Toyota Avalon and the 2016 Toyota Camry. The issue lies with the front passenger seat's occupant-classification system, which activates or deactivates the passenger-side airbag depending on whether or not the seat is occupied.

Apparently, the affected vehicles might have a system with an improper calibration. Toyota claims that, in the right conditions, two passenger airbags (dashboard and knee) might not deploy during an accident, which can increase the chance of injury or death.

As the parts themselves are totally fine, the fix is nothing more than a simple reprogramming of the occupant-classification module. The recall has not yet started, but Toyota is currently sending out first-class-mail notifications to owners of affected vehicles.