Tokyo - Scandal-hit Japanese truck maker Mitsubishi Fuso said Monday it will conduct emergency inspections of its vehicles as a stop-gap measure ahead of full-scale recalls after a number of accidents.
The company was responding to an order from the transport ministry, which said Mitsubishi's slow pace of filing promised recall notices has left too many hazardous vehicles on the road.
The truckmaker, an affiliate of Japan's fourth-largest carmaker Mitsubishi Motors, said earlier this month it would recall some 450 000 vehicles in Japan in connection with 47 defects by October.
"The company has only submitted three recalls so far so (some of its) vehicles are still running in this unrepaired state," said ministry official Masafumi Morita.
"It is dangerous for the vehicles to run with the old parts so we will first have them replace those parts with new ones," he said.
Mitsubishi Fuso will replace defective parts with new ones at no charge domestically starting July 1, even before design flaws are fixed. It will have to recall the affected vehicles again once the faulty parts are redesigned.
The company also offered to inspect for free all of its 1.3 million vehicles on Japanese roads from July 1 until December 24.
Since the recall announcement two weeks ago, at least six accidents involving Fuso vehicles have occurred in which three drivers were killed.
One of the deaths may have been caused by a newly announced fault, the company has said.
The owners of vehicles suspected of having faulty parts will be contacted via mail and urged to bring their cars in for inspection.
A total of 540 000 Mitsubishi Fuso vehicles are currently subject to recall, equivalent to 41 percent of the 1.3 million company vehicles still in service.
Mitsubishi Motors itself is recalling about 347 000 passenger cars globally.
Hit by the recall scandals and the arrest of former executives, Mitsubishi Motors, one-third owned by US-German auto giant DaimlerChrysler, saw domestic sales decline in May by 38.8 percent to 14 672, including mini vehicles.
The company expects domestic sales to drop 50 percent from year-earlier levels every month from June to September. - AFP