Now Honda faces recall crisis

The Japanese company became the latest manufacturer to issue a recall following Toyota's decision to examine at least 180,000 cars in the UK, amidst a recall of millions of vehicles globally, over faulty accelerator pedals. Meanwhile, Citron, the French makers of Peugeot 107s and Citron CIs, is this week expected to ask owners to return their cars for checks.

The Honda recall, which involves about 646,000 Jazz models built in China and Japan between 2002 and 2008, is because of problems with an electric window switch. The mechanism on the driver's door can apparently malfunction if exposed to water. The car manufacturer said this will cause the window to jam, or in rare cases, the electrics to short-circuit, leading to smoke or even fire.

The fault has caused three accidents, including one that resulted in the death in South Africa in September of a two-year-old child, Vanilla Nurse, who was sleeping in the car when it caught fire.

Although the company has had no complaints from British customers, it is contacting all 171,372 owners of its Jazz models as a safety precaution.

The move will be a further blow to the Japanese motor industry's reputation for reliability, which has already been severely dented by the problems with Toyota, which is bracing itselfs for a series of negligence claims. Class action lawsuits are being prepared in Canada and the US. Similar litigation could follow in Britain.

Bozena Michalowska from Leigh Day solicitors said: "If you were involved in an accident and insurers say it was your fault, you could have a potential claim or insurers could have a potential claim if it was held that it was a result of this problem."

The first UK British claim against Toyota was made on Friday by a solicitor for a driver in the Midlands, who is said to have received head injuries when his Toyota hit a wall at 30mph in September.

Peugeot Citron, which is Europe's second-biggest carmaker, is also recalling tens of thousands of cars made in partnership with Toyota at a car plant in Kilin, east of Prague. The plant manufacturers the Toyota Aygo as well as the Peugeot 107 and Citron C1, which are all essentially the same car but with different stylings and fittings.

The French company is said to be recalling around 100,000 cars in the next week or so amidst fears they also have faulty accelerator pedals.

Meanwhile in Japan, the media sharply criticised Toyota's president yesterday for what they called a delayed and unconvincing explanation for the massive car recall that has hit the manufacturer's reputation.

Akio Toyoda, the founder's grandson appointed last June to lead Toyota, the world's biggest carmaker, appeared on Friday to apologise and address criticism that the company mishandled a crisis over sticking accelerator pedals. However, he stopped short of ordering a recall for Toyota's iconic Prius hybrid over separate braking problems.

Toyoda's appearance before reporters at a company office in the central Japanese city of Nagoya made front pages of the country's leading newspapers, but won no praise.

"Words are not enough," the Nikkei business daily said in an editorial. "The company's crisis management ability is being subjected to severe scrutiny."

"Utterly too late," the Asahi newspaper said of Toyota's delayed reaction since news of the crisis broke on 21 January with a global recall of millions of vehicles.

"The entire world is watching how Toyota can humbly learn from its series of recent failures and make safe cars."

At his first news conference since the recall of 4.5 million cars, Toyoda promised to improve quality control and said he would head a special committee to review checks, go over consumer complaints and listen to outside experts to develop a fix.

Toyota's failure to stem its safety crisis has angered consumers and experts who had come to expect only streamlined efficiency from a company at the pinnacle of the global car industry.

"Toyota needs to be more assertive in terms of providing consumers comfort that the immediate problem is being addressed ... and that it can deal with these crises," said Sherman Abe, a business professor at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo.

It took prodding from the US government for Toyota to recall the vehicles, about half of them in North America, for pedals that can stick and cause sudden acceleration.

Asked if he should have acted more swiftly , Toyoda replied in hesitant English: "I will do my best." The company name is spelled and pronounced differently from the founding family name because Toyota was considered to have a luckier number of brush strokes when written in Japanese.

Toyoda is the second successive Toyota president to apologise for car defects. The first, Katsuaki Watanabe, shocked a news conference in 2006, bowing low before promising to improve quality. Toyoda bowed as he greeted reporters, but not in apology. He told the hastily called news conference that the firm had not decided what to do about braking problems in the Prius gas-electric hybrid. The high-mileage, low-pollution car is a leader in its field and a symbol of Toyota technology.

Toyoda and Shinichi Sasaki, who oversees quality control, offered no new explanations for the braking problem.

Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama earlier this month ordered industry and trade minister Masayuki Naoshima to urge Toyota to move more quickly to resolve the fiasco. Consumer affairs minister Mizuho Fukushima also called Toyota's reaction "too slow". Transport minister Seiji Maehara, who oversees auto regulation, has urged Toyota to consider recalling the Prius.