Toyota spokesperson, Dawn Soulis, announced Wednesday that 58,000 of its Yaris models sold in Canada would be recalled immediately - marking 1.3 million recalls worldwide - for a seatbelt defect.

The subcompact, in Canada, and 134,000 of the same model produced in the United States with the model years between 2006 and 2007 inclusive is being repaired at a Toyota dealership free-of-charge, and a letter is being sent out to all known owners in effort to stand behind their products adequately, said the representative.

The problem, which has never been reported in the wild, was discovered in safety tests where a foam pad in the car would burst in to flames if the vehicle was involved in a severe front-end collision.

Canadian and international testing requirements suggest that this is a rare issue, as quite a number of test collisions would have been run prior to the vehicle’s release and this issue was never detected.

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