Hyundai forced to recall Santa Fe models in U.S.

Hyundai Motor, Korea’s leading automaker, will start recalling more than 200,000 vehicles in the U.S. next month because of defective air bags, the U.S. safety agency said yesterday.

Subject to recall are Santa Fe sports-utility vehicles built from April 19, 2006, to July 7, 2008, and Sonatas manufactured between Jan. 24 and June 21 of this year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

The NHTSA said 199,118 Santa Fe models may have a faulty occupant classification system, or OCS, designed to prevent air-bag inflation that could injure children or infants in the front passenger seat.

In the recalled vehicles, the sensor system may keep the bags from deploying even when they should. Hyundai is also recalling 11,512 Sonatas as their side curtain air bags may inflate without receiving an electronic signal to deploy, the NHTSA said. Yonhap