TOKYO — Toyota will offer the same fix for stability-control programming it has announced for the Lexus GX460 in North America to vehicles in other regions, affecting 34,000 vehicles worldwide, the Japanese automaker said Tuesday.
Toyota will update the stability-control software program to reduce the risk of vehicles sliding in some Land Cruiser Prado vehicles, as well as the Lexus GX460, sold in other regions, the company said in a statement.
The move to expand the measures to other regions follows Toyota’s recall in North America and its agreement Monday to a record $16.4 million fine in the U.S., levied for a slow response in earlier recalls.
“In the court of public opinion, paying the fine speaks volumes. But at the end of the day, the fines are simply background noise in terms of the civil litigation,” said Richard Arsenault, a plaintiff’s attorney in Alexandria, La. “What’s really important are the facts that were the catalyst for the fines.”
Toyota has been fighting to regain its once-sterling reputation amid a spate of recalls, which have ballooned to more than 8 million vehicles worldwide, needing fixes for faulty gas pedals, defective floor mats and braking- software problems.
Toyota has also been trying to be quicker. The latest global fix comes less than a week after Consumer Reports magazine issued a warning about the Lexus GX460 sport utility vehicle, saying it may be prone to rollovers.
The automaker said it will carry out similar fixes in Europe and the Middle East to what is involved in the North American recall.
The vehicles requiring the update are 13,000 GX460 vehicles — 9,400 of them in the U.S., 1,000 in Russia and 1,000 in Oman.
Also affected are some types of left-hand-drive Land Cruiser Prado models.
Those models total 21,000 globally, including 4,400 in Oman, 4,000 in Russia and 1,500 in the United Arab Emirates, according to Toyota.
Toyota said the vehicles could slide sideways when turning sharply at high speeds, partly because the fuel tank and the presence of the driver may make the left side of a vehicle heavier.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Toyota “put consumers at risk” by failing to promptly notify authorities about potentially defective accelerator pedals on 2.3 million vehicles.
LaHood said Toyota knew about the problem in late September but didn’t issue the recall until late January, violating a federal law that requires an automaker to notify the government of a safety defect within five business days.
