The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has announced several recalls in the first week of February.

Starting with Toyota, the Japanese carmaker has issued a recall on a total of 427 RAV4 vehicles manufactured from November 24, 2011, through December 19, 2011, because the curtain shield airbags may not deploy. Toyota said it would check the RAV4s and if necessary, replace the assemblies. The safety recall is expected to begin in early March.

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Honda is expanding the range of its Accord-based Crosstour model with the addition of a four-cylinder, two-wheel drive version that goes on sale today priced from $27,655, or $28,465 if you include an $810 destination and handling charge. That's $2,685 less than the equivalent V6 model.

The new entry level Crosstour sports a 2.4-liter i-VTEC inline four-cylinder engine that develops 192 horsepower matched to a standard 5-speed automatic transmission, delivering 21 mpg city and 29 mpg highway, an improvement of 3 mpg and 2 mpg respectively over the V6 model.

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We were expecting Honda to drop a four-cylinder engine to its renamed Crosstour model (previously known as the Accord Crosstour) for a quite some time now, and today, the Japanese company finally made the move.

Scheduled to go on sale in the U.S.A. in the beginning of January 2012, the new base version of the Crosstour is fitted with Honda's 2.4-liter i-VTEC inline four-cylinder engine that produces 192-horsepower at 7,000 rpm and 162 lb-ft. of torque at 4,400 rpm.

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