Toyota, Honda and Nissan are recalling more than two million vehicles globally due to an air bag problem.
Around 150,000 UK cars are affected.
The problem relates to the air bag inflator on the passenger side of vehicles, which may burst and send pieces of plastic flying.
There have been five incidents - in the USA and Japan - but there were no injuries.
Toyota is recalling 76,000 vehicles bought in the UK in the period November 2000 to March 2004, while Honda is recalling 15,400 UK-bought vehicles made between 2001 and 2004.
The Toyota recall involves models such as the Corolla and the Yaris, while the Honda recall involves the Civic, the CRV and the FRV.
Nissan said that 59,058 of its cars sold in the UK are affected by the recall, including the X-Trail, Patrol, Almera, and Navara models.
The recall also involves 1,913 of the Mazda 6 models bought in the UK in 2002-03.
The recall for air bags made by Japanese firm Takata affects other car-makers, including non-Japanese manufacturers, Takata spokesman Akiko Watanabe said. She declined to give further details.
Worldwide, Toyota is recalling 1.7 million vehicles with some 580,000 in North America, 490,000 in Europe and 320,000 in Japan. Affected models include the Corolla, Tundra, Lexus SC, produced between November 2000 and March 2004.
Honda is recalling 1.1 million vehicles. About 680,000 are in North America, 270,000 in Japan and 64,000 in Europe. The models include Civic and Odyssey.
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