In what one news agency called “a rare public scolding”, Japan’s transport ministry on Friday issued a written instruction to Toyota Motor urging it to improve its management of vehicle defects.
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Reports said the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport asked the company to report by 4 August on how plans to improve the process of recalling defective vehicles.
The move followed a spate of Toyota and Lexus vehicle recalls worldwide and came after the ministry called in Toyota vice president Masatami Takimoto on Thursday to ask him to explain the circumstances surrounding the company’s submission of a recall report in October 2004 in connection with a defect in the Toyota Hilux Surf [4Runner for export] sport utility vehicle.
”The recall could have been done earlier,” Land, Infrastructure and Transport Minister Kazuo Kitagawa told a news conference on Friday, according to Kyodo News. ”Toyota had some problems including the absence of records on consideration of past information and the lack of close in-house communications.”
News agencies noted that Kumamoto police last week sent papers to prosecutors on three Toyota officials suspected of failing to recall the vehicles until five people had been injured in a Hilux Surf accident in Kumamoto Prefecture, in south-west Japan, in August 2004.
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By GlobalDataThe police suspect that Toyota knew about the vehicle’s defective relay rod, which could crack due to poor structural strength, in 1996, if not earlier.
The Associated Press (AP) said Toyota has denied any wrongdoing, saying that the reported problems had not appeared serious enough to warrant a recall until October 2004, when the automaker recalled in Japan 330,000 Hilux Surf vehicles manufactured between December 1988 and May 1996.
The 2004 recall affected more than a million vehicles sold in 180 nations and some problems had been reported from abroad, according to Toyota. None of the overseas reports had mentioned accidents, the company told AP.
At a news conference on Thursday, Toyota president Katsuaki Watanabe bowed deeply and apologised for the recall troubles such as stirring up worries among customers. He denied wrongdoing.
“I take this seriously and see it as a crisis,” Watanabe said, according to AP. “I want to apologise deeply for the troubles we have caused.”
After receiving the ministry’s written instruction, Toyota’s Takimoto said the company would improve its internal control system that failed to comprehensively manage the information, Kyodo reported.
The instruction recommended Toyota continue to closely monitor vehicles with safety problems that do not necessitate a recall, keep records of discussions on safety problems and secure information shared between the recall and engineering divisions.
“We take the directives from the ministry very seriously,” he said in a statement cited by the Associated Press.
