Toyota recalls 6.39m autos
Company finds safety hazards in some of its top selling models
tokyo — Toyota Motor Corp, the world’s largest carmaker, called back more than six million vehicles to fix a range of safety defects in one of the biggest recalls in automotive history.
The company found five types of safety hazards in vehicles including some of its top sellers such as the Camry sedan, RAV4 sport utility vehicle and Corolla cars, according to a statement on Wednesday. The carmaker isn’t aware of any injuries or fatalities linked to the defects, it said.
The recall, Toyota’s second-biggest since late 2012, is a setback for President Akio Toyoda, who has spent years trying to restore the company’s reputation for quality after calling back millions of vehicles in 2009-2010 because of unintended acceleration. Scrutiny of safety practices in the auto industry is rising as US regulators investigate General Motors Co for its handling of deadly ignition-switch flaws that the company knew of as far back as 2001.
“Something is wrong,” Koji Endo, an analyst at Advanced Research Japan in Tokyo, said by telephone. “They may even need to review their production process. Even if the problem is with the suppliers, Toyota should be responsible for it.”
Though details weren’t available for precise calculations, Endo estimated that the recall could cost Toyota about ¥60 billion ($588 million) to ¥70 billion, or 10,000 Toyota fell 3.1 per cent to close at ¥5,450 in Tokyo after the announcement, dragging down the benchmark Topix index, which declined 2.1 per cent.
Biggest recalls
The recalls involve 6.39 million vehicles, some of which are being called back for more than one issue, pushing the total tally to 6.76 million, the company said. The Toyota City, Japan-based carmaker recalled 7.43 million vehicles in October 2012 to fix power-window switches on models including its Camry and Corolla cars.
Toyota last month admitted to wrongdoing and agreed to reviews by an independent monitor who is assessing its safety reporting practices as part of a $1.2 billion settlement, the largest criminal penalty ever imposed in the US on an automaker. Toyoda, 57, has pledged to improve the company’s recall process after calling back more than 10 million vehicles for problems that led to sudden acceleration.
Lawmakers last week drew parallels to Toyota’s unintended-acceleration recalls as they pressed CEO Mary Barra on GM’s handling of flawed ignition switches that the company has linked to at least 13 deaths. The largest US automaker is being fined $7,000 a day for fail- ing to fully answer questions about the flawed part in cars including the Chevrolet Cobalt.
In Wednesday’s recall, about 3.5 million of the vehicles — more than half in North America — are being called back to replace spiral cables that may prevent driver’s-side airbags from deploying. Models involved include RAV4, Corolla, Yaris, Highlander, Tacoma and Camry that were produced from April 2004 to December 2010.
Another 2.3 million vehicles are being called back to inspect and replace the front seat rails of threedoor models. Springs that lock these rails may break if the seats are frequently adjusted back and forth, the company said.
The models involved with this issue, which could lead to seats that move in the event of a crash, were built from January 2005 through August 2010. The vehicles are the Ist, Vitz, Belta and Ractis in Japan, and Scion xD, Urban Cruiser and Yaris in other markets.
Toyota also will fix noisy and potentially unstable steering column brackets on about 760,000 vehicles globally. The remaining safety campaigns are to replace windshield wiper motors of about 160,000 Ractis vehicles in Japan and the engine starters of about 20,000 vehicles in Japan and Hong Kong. —