Recall Road: Global Car Recalls

Recall Road Global Car Recalls

Over recent months, the global auto industry has been rocked by the recent mass vehicle recalls involving some of the world's largest car manufacturer, but vehicle recalls are nothing new to the industry.

In 1978, after evidence showed that the design of the Ford Pinto's gas tank made it susceptible to explosion and fire even in the event of just a minor collision - and after allegations that the flawed design had led to at least three deaths - 1.5 million of the vehicles were recalled.

However, never before have recalls been witnessed on such a massive scale, with car giants Toyota, Nissan, Honda and now General Motors all taking the very difficult decision to take their cars off the road in admission of engineering faults.

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Toyota were the first to fall when they recalled eight million cars over concerns about accelerator pedals jamming, but then the US Transportation Department began investigations into braking problems with the 2010 Toyota Prius, leading to even more recalls.

The Middle East were not spared by the crisis; at the beginning of February, Toyota announced it would be recalling 2005-2010 model year Avalons and 2009-2010 Sequoia cars in the region to fix accelerator pedals that led to the recall of 4.4 million cars in North America, Europe and China.

Panic in the industry

The well publicised crisis at Toyota, seen as the market leader in car manufacturing across Asia and much of the world, was enough to create panic within the industry and sparked panic among its competitors that, "if Toyota can get it wrong, then so can we."

Soon after Toyota's recalls, Honda issued a recall for almost a million cars over an 'airbag problem', but then Nissan, Daihatsu and Suzuki have followed suite, recalling cars that may have potential problems.

The Middle East was affected by many of the recalls, in particular Nissan's. It has been reported just today that Nissan is to recall more than half a million vehicles worldwide for problems with loose brake pedal pins and faulty fuel gauges, Japan's third-largest automaker said Tuesday.

The recall includes pickups and minivans. Most of the cars were sold in the United States, but the recall would also heavily affect other countries and regions, including the Gulf region.

Reliability and durability

However, the Middle East region has been spared by the recent GM recall. The region will not be affected by the recall of 1.3 million compact cars by GM as a result of steering issues.

GM blamed the problem on a supplier that is partially owned by Toyota. A GM executive said the system received from the supplier didn't meet requirements for reliability and durability.

Toyota spent years building a solid reputation as a manufacturer of some of the world's safest cars, and it looked as if the recall crisis would take them to the brink of collapse. However, the company says it has enjoyed increased sales in February 2010 compared to the same month in 2009. A 65 percent increase in sales in the UK is reported for February 2010, with 2285 cars sold compared to 1381 in the same month in 2009. Toyota says the majority of the improved sales figures are due to private buyers, which has been helped by the Scrappage Scheme.

Toyota has topped the Middle East car sales chart for the last few years, and if sales in the UK are anything to go by this trend is likely to continue despite the recall crisis.

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Daniel Jones

Daniel is a Politics and Philosophy graduate from Cardiff University where he also worked as a section editor on the award winning student newspaper. After university he joined an IT support company where he was a B2B online writer. He loves anything to do with sport and joined GDS in July 2009.

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