The great Japanese car recall

Massive Japanese auto-recall

With all the attention on Toyota and their current recall crisis, you'd be forgiven for thinking that other Japanese car-makers are silently cheering that their biggest rival is caught up in such a scandal, but nothing could be further from the truth.

If anything, the whole Toyota crisis and the company's president Mr Toyoda facing a US Congressional hearing has prompted other Japanese automakers to make sure their products are the best they can be - hence a series of recalls from Honda, Nissan, Daihatsu and Suzuki, albeit mostly from their home market.

Mass recalls

Last week, we reported how Honda have issued a recall for almost a million cars over an 'airbag problem', but now Nissan, Daihatsu and Suzuki have followed suite, recalling cars that may have potential problems.

Suzuki Motor have put out a recall for 432,000 small vans in Japan because of a potential problem with air conditioning units, while Nissan have recalled 76,000 cars in Japan and more than 2,000 overseas due to a defect that may cause engine failure.

Suzuki's recalls relate to 2005 to 2009 models of its Every Van and Mazda Scrum, which it builds for its partner company.

Daihastu seem to facing a similar problem to Honda and have announced they would be recalling 60,000 Daihatsu vehicles due to faulty airbags that are prone to accidentally inflating.

While one must admire the automakers in ensuring customer safety by issuing these recalls at great expense, one could cynically suggest that if it wasn't for the current Toyota crisis none of these recalls would have been issued... OK, maybe the Nissan one might have.

However Nissan, who are part-owned by Renault, did not say in which countries the recalls would happen.

As of yet, there have been no reported accidents, something Toyota cannot claim. Problems with their cars are reported to have caused 34 deaths in the US alone.

Relevant articles:

Mr Toyoda goes to Washington | First Toyota... now Honda | Toyota's recall crisis

Timon Singh

Timon Singh is a graduate of Liverpool University where he received a degree in Social and Economic History. He has previously worked for BBC Magazines on BBC Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine, the publication for the popular genealogy show.

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