TOYOTA HAS recalled another 870,000 vehicles in North America, this time over concerns that their spare tyres could fall on to the road due to a corroding cable.
Adding to the pile of issues facing the world’s biggest carmaker, senior members of the US House of Representatives energy and commerce committee said on Friday that they planned to hold a follow-up hearing on May 6th to examine potential defects in Toyota’s electronic systems that may have caused unintended acceleration.
They have asked Jim Lentz, head of Toyota’s US sales arm, to attend.
While vehicle recalls are commonplace and affect all carmakers, Toyota is under intense scrutiny in the wake of a series of damaging incidents involving sticky accelerator pedals, out-of-place floor mats and erratic braking systems.
These problems have led to recalls of more than 8 million vehicles worldwide since last November. The latest recalls affect Sienna minivans in 20 cold-climate states where road salt can corrode the cable supporting the spare tyre.
Toyota faces scores of lawsuits and is under investigation by Congress and US safety regulators.
Toyota said it was “more than willing to meet with the committee and discuss the ongoing testing related to our electronic throttle control system, as well as the steps we are taking to improve our quality assurance processes”.
The company says it has found no evidence of electronic defects, and that the unintended acceleration problems are due to out-of-place floor mats and a mechanical defect in the accelerator pedal.– (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010)
