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Toyota, Honda, Mazda and Nissan recall 3.4 million vehicles for faulty airbags

Most vehicle recalls that take place these days are a result of some problem that happens during the manufacturing process by the automaker, but as we see here, parts suppliers can also factor in to problematic safety issues. Automotive News is reporting that a total of 3.4 million vehicles produced by Japanese automakers between 2000 and 2004 are being recalled globally due to faulty airbags produced by an outside supplier, Takata Corp.
According to the report, vehicles from Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Mazda are being recalled because of passenger front airbags that do not inflate properly. Globally, Toyota is said to be recalling around 1.73 million cars including 510,000 in the US composed of Toyota Corolla, Matrix, Sequoia and Tundra as well as the Lexus SC430 for the 2001 through 2003 model years; this is the second time this year the 2003 Corolla and Matrix have been recalled for an airbag problem. Honda is recalling 1.14 million models, Nissan another 480,000 and Mazda 45,463. The article says that Takata supplied faulty airbags to non-Japanese automakers, but it did not specify which ones.
Honda and Toyota have released information on their own websites about the recall, while Nissan and Mazda have not yet commented. Read official press releases from Honda and Toyota, below, and look for updates as we have word from the others.

Mazda still has a team working on rotary engines

The flame still burns within Mazda to stage a rotary engine revival. Before you start getting excited, it's way too soon to start saving money for the fabled, next-gen RX-7 or RX-8. Still, company boss Masamichi Kogai confirmed to Autocar that the Japanese automaker has an engineering team dedicated to improving the Wankel. This development group has the hard task of trying to make the rotary stack up to modern internal combustion engines in terms of emissions and fuel-economy standards. Neither factor were ever exactly Wankel's strong suits. Kogai described them as working "very enthusiastically" to Autocar. The boss didn't discuss any future RX-vehicles or the size of the team, however, a report from last year indicated that there were 30 engineers in partnership with universities to update the engine's design. After problems keeping up with emissions and fuel economy, Mazda built it's last rotary for an RX-8 in June 2012. Since then, there have been intermittent rumors of a return. One possible solution was a design called the 16X that was supposed to offer more torque and better fuel economy. Another possibility was a small-displacement unit as a range-extender in an electric Mazda2. Rumors of a new RX-7 have been heard for years. In 2013, Kogai clearly said that it wasn't happening. When asked again last year, he reiterated the same point.

Mazda CX-9 Luggage Test | How much fits behind the third row?

We recently tested the luggage-carrying capability of one of the most spacious three-row crossovers, the Hyundai Palisade, and now it's time for one of the smallest. The Mazda CX-9 may look terrific and drive even better, but that zest comes at the expense of cargo capacity, as we're about to see. The big culprit is that rakish liftgate, which not only robs the CX-9 of luggage space, but third-row headroom as well. It's pretty dungeon-like back there despite competitive legroom, and there aren't any air vents or USB ports, either. But this is about cargo capacity, so let's see how much luggage will fit inside. According to the specs, the CX-9 has 38.2 cubic-feet with the third-row lowered. That's far less than the Palisade's 45.8 and Honda Pilot's 46.8. It's actually even less than the five-passenger Honda Passport (50.5).  The test car came with a $100 cargo mat, which is velcroed to the seats and folds OK with it, but the carpet also takes up some extra space ... and the CX-9 needs as much as it can get.  To raise the seats, lean inside and pull up/back on those two handles. There is 14.4 cubic-feet of space behind the raised third row. On paper, that is indeed one of the smaller amounts in the segment, but in practice, it seems even smaller.  You can free up space by removing the rigid floor panel. If you need to carry multiple pieces of luggage, it's almost a necessity.  OK, so I have two midsize roller suitcases, both of which would need to be checked. Then there's two larger carry-on roll-aboards and one smaller one. As a bonus, there's my wife's quasi-fancy weekend bag. It was a struggle to fit three of them aboard, and Tetrised together two formations. The first uses all three carry-on bags with the cargo floor removed. And no, the fancy bag won't fit atop the blue one because it'll run into the liftgate window. A smaller tote would definitely fit, however.  This is how I could fit one of the bigger check-in bags. The liftgate just barely closed. Again, you could fit a small tote atop the blue bag, plus some other items in the lower outboard regions.  OK, so how could you fit everything aboard? Lowering half of the 50/50-split third row is a must, obviously. Both big check-in bags then stack atop each other, and then stack the other four atop each other with the cargo floor in place.