Honda Motor Co said it would recall another 440,000 cars around the world for faulty airbags as rival Toyota Motor Corp faced further probes over its largest-ever safety crisis.
Honda, Japan's No. 2 automaker, has now recalled close to 950,000 vehicles for airbag problems linked to one fatality and a total of 11 injuries in the United States.
While auto recalls are not uncommon and Honda's is not huge, it comes at a sensitive time for an industry struggling to draw customers back to showrooms after a brutal downturn.
Toyota President Akio Toyoda will come to the United States in early March to meet government officials and to visit the carmaker's local operations, delaying a trip initially scheduled for next week due to the heavy snowfall in Washington, the Nikkei newspaper reported.
A Republican lawmaker, U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, has invited Toyoda to meet with members of Congress the week of February 22. He is also urging the House Oversight Committee chairman to invite Toyoda to a February 24 hearing. A Toyota representative could not immediately be reached for comment.
Toyoda's U.S. visit comes as the world's biggest automaker faces a storm of criticism over safety issues and perceptions that the carmaker has been too slow to respond. Toyota representatives were not immediately available for a comment.
In the latest of a string of product problems for Toyota, U.S. regulators said they were reviewing dozens of complaints about potential steering problems in newer Toyota Corollas.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it was discussing the matter with Toyota to see if a formal investigation was warranted, a standard procedure when reviewing complaints.
Toyota will stop production of its Lexus HS250h and Sai hybrids in Japan from Saturday through February 20 as it modifies the production process to fix braking problems in the vehicles, a company spokeswoman said.
The move comes a day after Toyota expanded its recall to include more than 400,000 of its latest Prius and other new hybrid models due to insufficient braking. It also recalled more than 7,300 late-model Camrys in the United States for a separate braking issue.
That comes on top of 8.1 million vehicles recalled since September for problems with slipping floormats and sticking accelerator pedals that have been linked to crashes that killed at least 19 people.
In a bid to prevent the crisis from damaging U.S.-Japanese relations, Japan's transport minister, Seiji Maehara, met U.S. ambassador John Roos on Wednesday.
"I believe we should not let this problem hurt the bilateral relationship and free and fair market activities," Maehara told reporters after the meeting.
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Roos added, "I emphasized to him that this is a safety issue and I very much appreciate how the minister, the ministry as well as Toyota are on top of this issue."
"I just want to emphasize it in no way has direct or indirect impact on the strength of the bilateral relationship between the United States and Japan," he added.
A U.S. congressional committee postponed a hearing scheduled for Wednesday to examine the recalls and Toyota's response, as a snowstorm hit Washington.
Toyoda, the grandson of Toyota's founder, said on Tuesday he might travel to the United States to tackle criticism that his company moved too slowly on earlier recalls.
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Toyota faces potential litigation over the crashes linked to the problem of unintended acceleration as well as class-action lawsuits over the brake problems with the Prius.
Wednesday, a group of nearly two dozen law firms around the U.S. will try to bring a class action lawsuit against Toyota Motor Corp., alleging its vehicles have cost customers billions of dollars in lost value in the wake of massive recalls.
P. Tim Howard, a Northeastern University law professor leading the group, said Wednesday the more than 8 million vehicles recalled by Toyota have collectively cost their owners more than $2 billion in lost resale value.
Kelley Blue Book and other automotive guides have warned that Toyota's recalls are eroding the value of its vehicles. On Wednesday, the car appraisal guide estimated that the resale value of recalled cars and trucks will fall an additional 1.5 percent — that's on top if a 1 percent to 3 percent decline that Blue Book analysts forecast last week.
Dozens of so-called economic loss cases have been filed around the country on behalf of Toyota owners who believe the recalls have hurt the value of their vehicles, Howard said. The group has a hearing scheduled in U.S. District Court in San Diego on March 25, where a panel of judges will decide whether to consolidate the suits into a single national class-action suit.
Honda Chief Financial Officer Yoichi Hojo told Reuters the recall of 437,763 vehicles would cost 2 billion to 3 billion yen, or $22.2 million to $33.3 million.
That comes on top of a recall announced in November 2008 for 4,200 Accord and Civic sedans due to faulty airbag inflators, and expanded last June to cover an additional 510,000 vehicles globally.
The faulty inflators could produce too much pressure and risk rupturing their casings, sending shards toward the driver in an accident.
The airbags are made by the U.S. unit of Japan's Takata Corp, a Honda spokesman said. A spokesman at the supplier said the company was not aware of any defect in airbags it supplies to other automakers.
Hojo said Honda would ask Takata for compensation of some sort and to improve its production line, as the fault originated in the manufacturing process, not the design approved by Honda.
The latest recall applies to 2001 and 2002 models of the Accord, Civic, Odyssey, CR-V, Pilot and 2002 Acura TL and CL vehicles in the United States, as well as the Inspire, Saber and Lagreat in Japan. All vehicles are made at Honda's U.S. and Canadian plants.
Last month, Honda announced a global recall of about 646,000 cars for a fault with a window switch.
Some analysts said automakers regularly make recalls, and media reactions to recent cases had been overblown.
"While the way automakers handle recalls is important, I think people should be careful not to overreact to every single recall," said Yoshihiko Tabei, chief analyst at Kazaka Securities.
"Rather, my concern for the auto industry is their earnings for the next financial year, given the absence of the boost they enjoyed from government incentives this year."