Toyota issues second largest recall exercise affecting 6.39 million vehicles

Toyota, on Wednesday, announced its second biggest recall exercise, which is likely to affect 6.39 million vehicles around the globe. The world's biggest automaker, Toyota, cited it was not aware of any accidents caused by the glitches - found in 27 Toyota models including the RAV4 and Yaris subcompact - ranging from faulty steering to seats.

In addition, Toyota revealed problems were also found in the Pontiac Vibe and the Subaru Trezia, two models the automaker built for General Motors and Fuji Heavy Industries respectively.

According to The Business Times, in total, about 2.34 million of the recalled vehicles were sold in North America while another 810,000 were sold in Europe. It is unclear if any cars sold locally are affected. 

Among the 6.39 million vehicles recalled - around 3.5 million were recalled to replace a faulty spiral cable that could be damaged when the steering wheel is turned. According to the automaker, this could cause the airbag to fail in the event of a crash.

Also, roughly 2.32 million three-door models manufactured between January 2005 and August 2010 were recalled to check for a fault in the seat rails that could cause the seat to slide forward in a crash - risking injury for the driver or passengers. The other recalls are for issues including faulty steering column brackets, windshield wiper motors and engine starters.

Toyota's vehicle recall on Wednesday is the largest announcement on a single day for the marque since October 2012, when it called back 7.43 million Yaris, Corolla and other models to fix faulty power window switches.

Toyota's action to isuue five different recalls on a single day from Tokyo arrive at a time as major automakers face increasing scrutiny in the United States - on how quickly they take preventive safety action and how quickly they share information with regulators and the public.

Just last month, Toyota agreed to pay $1.2 billion (S$1.5 billion) to the U.S. government for withholding information related to unintended acceleration in its vehicles. That safety crisis had caused Toyota to recall more than nine million vehicles.  

According to Reuters, automakers are increasingly turning to recalls rather than risk bad publicity or legal costs. For example, American automaker General Motors (GM), is conducting a recall of 2.6 million cars - citing an ignition switch problem - which has been linked to at least the death of 13 commuters.