Toyota Motor Corp will recall 8,000 pickups due to possible cracks in a common drive shaft component that Ford Motor Co and Nissan Motor Co Ltd said posed no safety risk to their vehicles.
Toyota’s decision to recall the this year’s model Tacoma pickup trucks in the US, which it announced on Friday, was the latest in a series of recalls that have hurt the automaker’s sales and its reputation for quality.
The Toyota recall followed supplier Dana Holding Corp’s report to US safety regulators that 34,000 drive shaft components it supplied to Toyota, Ford and Nissan could have cracks.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Dana said it was investigating the cause of the problem and remedies would be specific to each vehicle on which the parts are used. It believed less than 2 percent of the parts shipped to the automakers had cracks.
About 17,000 of the parts were supplied to Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner car-based SUVs and a review found no potential impact on the vehicles, Ford spokesman Said Deep said.
“Our rigorous testing and review concluded there are no safety or performance issues,” Deep said.
The parts were supplied for a small number of this year’s model four-wheel drive Nissan and Infiniti trucks and SUVs, Nissan said.
The vehicles “will not experience a loss of control or present a safety risk even in the unlikely event the part should fail,” Nissan spokesman Colin Price said in a statement.
Toyota said in a document obtained by reporters that the all-wheel drive version of the 2010 Tacoma trucks might have a component containing cracks in the joint portion of the drive shaft due to an “improper manufacturing process control.”
The cracks eventually could cause the drive shaft to separate and strike the road surface, potentially causing drivers to lose control of the vehicle, the document showed.
Toyota said in the document the pickups were built from mid-December to early this month.
It told the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of its planned recall on Thursday and was not aware of any accidents caused by the defect.
Toyota’s latest move follows a string of recalls in recent months that cover more than 8.5 million vehicles globally due to the risk that a loose floormat or a sticky accelerator pedal may lead to unintended acceleration, and to resolve a problem with regenerative braking on its Prius hybrid car.
VOLKSWAGEN
Meanwhile, German automaker Volkswagen said on Friday it was recalling some 20,000 cars in Mexico, a day after it announced the recall of nearly 200,000 cars in Brazil over potential wheel malfunctions.
The company said the recall in Mexico had been ordered over the “possibility that the rear wheel bearings could be insufficiently lubricated, causing then to make noise.”
“If the situation is not addressed, it could cause the wheel bearings to lock,” the company said in a statement released by its Puebla factory.
The company said it was recalling “approximately 20,000 cars,” all of them Gol and Gol Sedan models, the statement said.
A day earlier, the company said it was recalling nearly 200,000 of its Novo Gol and Voyage model cars in Brazil over the same issue.
Volkswagen Brazil said on its Web site that 193,620 Novo Gol and Voyage cars were at risk of not having sufficient lubrication on its rear wheels, which “can cause noise and continuous use could lead to a blockage of the wheels.”
“In extreme cases, the wheel can come off,” it said.
Volkswagen also said on Friday that its global sales were up more than 40 percent on the year last month, powered by strong demand in China.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
BIG BUCKS: Chairman Wei is expected to receive NT$34.12 million on a proposed NT$5 cash dividend plan, while the National Development Fund would get NT$8.27 billion Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday announced that its board of directors approved US$15.25 billion in capital appropriations for long-term expansion to meet growing demand. The funds are to be used for installing advanced technology and packaging capacity, expanding mature and specialty technology, and constructing fabs with facility systems, TSMC said in a statement. The board also approved a proposal to distribute a NT$5 cash dividend per share, based on first-quarter earnings per share of NT$13.94, it said. That surpasses the NT$4.50 dividend for the fourth quarter of last year. TSMC has said that while it is eager
‘IMMENSE SWAY’: The top 50 companies, based on market cap, shape everything from technology to consumer trends, advisory firm Visual Capitalist said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) was ranked the 10th-most valuable company globally this year, market information advisory firm Visual Capitalist said. TSMC sat on a market cap of about US$915 billion as of Monday last week, making it the 10th-most valuable company in the world and No. 1 in Asia, the publisher said in its “50 Most Valuable Companies in the World” list. Visual Capitalist described TSMC as the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry operator that rolls out chips for major tech names such as US consumer electronics brand Apple Inc, and artificial intelligence (AI) chip designers Nvidia Corp and Advanced
RSS