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Toyota recalls 130 000 cars

05 November 2010 10:53 (UTC +04:00)

Baku - APA-Economics. Toyota said it was recalling about 135,000 of two of its small-car models to fix a flaw in the software used to manage their electronic power steering (EPS), Financial Times reported.

The recall affects certain of the carmakerâ€™s compact iQ cars, which it sells in Europe and Japan, and its Passo model, which it only sells in Japan.

Toyota said that there had been cases reported when the cars crossed roadside â€œrumbleâ€ strips and their EPS incorrectly interpreted the signal. This caused the carsâ€™ EPS warning light to trigger, and meant that the driver â€œwould need extra effort to steer the vehicleâ€.

The company said that it had made the recall because of incidents reported in Japan, but said that there had been no reports of problems with the cars in Europe.

It said the recall affected 64,620 cars in Japan and 70,840 cars in Europe, of which about 12,000 were in the UK. It said that the fault would take about two hours to fix.

Before the latest recall, Toyota had over the past year recalled about 12.4m of its vehicles since acknowledging potential dangers from out-of-position floor mats on some of its models in November 2009.

The Japanese carmakerâ€™s problems with quality have tarnished its reputation for reliability and caused it to put in place new procedures aimed at identifying potential problems with its cars early and responding to them quickly.

In October the company said it was recalling 1.5m vehicles in the US, Asia and Europe after discovering flaws in their brakes and fuel injection systems.

Toyota said the latest recall was part of its culture of â€œresponding much more quickly to quality concernsâ€.