Mass recall for ‘best-built cars in world’

It is starting to become a case of total recall.

They boast of producing the “best-built cars in the world” but the Japanese carmaker Toyota finds itself once again forced to recall vehicles because of defects in manufacture.

The latest recall involves nearly 7.3m vehicles worldwide, bringing to over 22m the number of cars recalled by Toyota in the past three years.

The company began to recall vehicles worldwide after it detected a flaw that could lead the power-window switch in some vehicles to melt or catch fire. The switch on the driver’s side did not have grease applied evenly during production, causing friction in the switch and sometimes smoke.

The recall affects about 2.47m vehicles in the US, 1.4m in China, and 1.39m in Europe, said spokesman Joichi Tachikawa.

The Corolla and Camry are among the 14 models — some produced as far back as 2007 — subject to inspection and repair, he said.

Toyota Ireland has said the company will recall 9,232 Yaris, 10,357 Auris, 14,112 Corolla, and 2,392 RAV 4 vehicles here. Repairs to the window switch will be carried out free of charge and the company will be writing to all owners telling them to have their vehicles checked at their local dealership.

The repair involves the application of a special lubricant, and will take an hour to complete. The company warns that if non-approved lubricant is applied to the switch it could cause the device to overheat and melt.

More than 200 problems were reported in US, and a fewer number of problems were reported elsewhere, including 39 cases in Japan, the Toyota spokesman said. No crashes or injuries have been reported related to the problem.

The Japanese group’s reputation continues to be dented by the continuing recalls and safety blunders.

Its shares fell almost 2% on the news. The world’s largest carmaker has been plagued by recalls since 2009 with these latest announcements bringing the total number of vehicles recalled to about 20.3m.

In January of last year the company recalled 1.7m Toyota and Lexus vehicles worldwide to check fuel pumps.

Previously admired for its vehicles’ safety and reliability, a US recall of about 4m vehicles in late 2009 swelled to nearly 9m by Feb 2010 for brake and accelerator defects blamed for dozens of accidents.

As criticism mounted of its slow response and bureaucratic inflexibility, Toyota tightened its recall policy and by Nov 2010 had pulled nearly 13m vehicles over a range of issues.

That rose to 14.7m last year and now stands at 22m.

The scale of the recall, equivalent to 93% of its vehicles sold last year, comes as company president Akio Toyoda pushes to rebuild the company’s reputation for quality.

In 2010, he appeared before the US congress to apologise for defects.