TOKYO: Toyota readied an announcement yesterday on repairs for millions of vehicles affected by a safety recall due to faulty accelerator pedals, as its executives went into damage-control mode.
Toyota is halting US production this week of eight models to produce newly designed accelerator pedals. At the same time it is finalising a fix for vehicles already on the road affected by the massive recall.
The issue has been a public-relations nightmare for the Japanese giant, whose executives were set to launch a charm offensive yesterday to try to limit the damage to the vaunted reputation of the world’s largest automaker.
Toyota’s US arm was due to issue a statement on a fix for the vehicles, a company spokesman said.
Jim Lentz, president of Toyota’s US sales arm, was to give a video message and hold a teleconference with media. And Lentz was due to appear on NBC’s “Today Show” in the United States, Dow Jones reported.
Toyota pulled up to 1.8 million vehicles in Europe on Friday, the latest in a series of recalls that have affected almost eight million Toyota cars worldwide — more than its entire 2009 global sales of 7.8 million vehicles.
The company said that in rare cases, the pedal mechanism could become worn and harder to depress, or get stuck in a partially depressed position.
Toyota engineers have been putting the finishing touches to a repair to insert a “spacer” in the pedal mechanism, in order to increase the tension in a spring and reduce the risk of the pedal staying down.
Toyota, which overtook General Motors in 2008 as the top-selling automaker, has been beset by a series of safety issues that critics say raise questions about whether it sacrificed its legendary quality to become number one.
Toyota published an advertisement in US newspapers on Sunday explaining that the company has stopped production of the eight models for a week because of the sticking pedal.
“Why have we taken this unprecedented action? Because it’s the right thing to do for our customers,” the advertisement said.
“We believe we are close to announcing an effective remedy.”
Toyota’s president Akio Toyoda kept a low profile last week as the company founded by his grandfather more than 70 years ago battled to contain the fallout from the accelerator pedal problems.
The Toyota family scion gave a brief apology to a Japanese television crew on Saturday for the massive recalls.
“We’re extremely sorry to have made customers feel uneasy,” he told public broadcaster NHK on the sidelines of the Davos forum in Switzerland, in his first public remarks on the recall since it went global.
The 53-year-old grandson of the automaker’s founder — named a year ago to steer the Japanese automaker through the global economic downturn — faces perhaps his biggest challenge yet handling the safety recall.
His silence on the issue last week has raised eyebrows in Japan, where the only statement issued by Toyota’s headquarters since the recall went global related to a tree-planting project in the Philippines.
Toyota’s shares suffered another drop yesterday, declining 1.1 per cent to 3,450 yen. The stock plunged about 14 per cent last week.
In another hit to Japanese makers’ reputation for safety, Honda recalled 646,000 of its cars worldwide Friday due to a potential fire risk linked to a window switch problem that is reported to have killed a child in South Africa.
The move affects Fit/Jazz cars made between 2002 and 2008 in Japan, China, Brazil, Thailand, Malaysia and India.
Honda shares slid 2.5 per cent to 2,999 yen.
Ford’s joint venture partner in China said on Sunday it had resumed production of light buses after a review of accelerator pedals made by the same US parts supplier involved in Toyota’s worldwide recall found no problems. — AFP