Over 180,000 British cars have been affected by a massive recall from Toyota the Japanese car giant, who announced that seven models are affected by a problem with the accelerator pedal. Internationally Toyota has been forced to recall millions of its cars.
Additionally, the company is looking into further reports that there are faulty brakes on its US and Japanese Prius hybrid model.
In the face of the recalls, Toyota UK has announced that it will take almost a week before they can begin to repair the cars affected by the recall, with the actual repair start date not set until February 10th. This is due to the fact that the parts needed to repair the affected vehicles will not arrive until next week.
As the largest car maker in the world Toyota is poised to suffer a huge setback with a loss estimated at about £1.23b once the recall is complete and potential lost sales are taken into account. However, it expects that sales will bounce back over the course of the year. Currently there are about 1.6m Toyota vehicles on the roads of the UK.
The affected UK models are the Aygo, IQ, Auris, Verso, Corolla, and the Avensis. The company said that it will write to around 180,000 UK drivers advising them of the need for repairs after the company found that the accelerator pedals stick or jam at times.
Toyota claims that the repair process will only take about half an hour and is available at Toyota dealers. The company also stated that there have not been any accidents as a result of the problem, and that only 26 incidents with the accelerator pads had been noted across Europe.
According to a spokesman for the car giant, no new models of Toyotas are affected by the recall, and dealerships will continue to accept orders on all makes and models of cars.
