AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)05/24 Report--

Toyota Motor subsidiary Japan Daihatsu Industrial Co., Ltd. submitted a report to Japan's Ministry of Land and Transport on May 23 that more than 100000 vehicles would be recalled because of a defect in the stabilizer rod of the shock absorber at the front of the vehicle. Officials say the reason for the defect is that Dafa Industries mismanaged the production process and left antirust liquid inside the device of the vehicle, resulting in reduced strength and quality problems of the stabilizing rods. Later, officials will solve the problem by replacing the relevant parts of the recalled vehicles.

Data show that Dafa Automobile was founded in 1907, the company's business scope is mainly for the expansion of the field of small cars. As early as November 1967, Dafa Motor signed a business cooperation with Toyota self-Industry Co., Ltd., Toyota self-Vendor Co., Ltd., Toyota became a Toyota subsidiary after acquiring 51.2% of Dafa Motor shares in 1998, and Toyota acquired 100% of Dafa Motor shares in 2016. Toyota has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Toyota Motor, accounting for about 4% of Toyota's global sales.

It is worth mentioning that this is not the first large-scale recall of Dafa cars. On January 19 this year, due to fraudulent practices in the testing of vehicles, the vehicles involved in the tests may not meet the safety standards. In the event of an accident, the doors may be locked, making it difficult to open them from the outside, thus increasing the risk of the vehicles. Dafa announced a recall of two of its models, involving more than 320000 models.

In fact, reports of irregularities in the testing of Dafa cars were reported last year. On April 28 last year, Dafa issued a notice saying that the front door lining (Door Trim) of its four models had been improperly modified in side crash tests, violating the testing procedures and methods stipulated in the regulations. The door linings of these models have been modified to have notches to minimize test risk. This modification prevents passengers from being harmed by sharp edges inside the door when the side airbag is unfolded in an accident. It is understood that the cumulative sales of these four models are as high as 88123.

At that time, in response to the counterfeiting incident, Dafa Motor responded that it had stopped the sale of these vehicles and immediately reported to the inspection and certification authorities that these vehicles would be retested in the presence of inspection and certification bodies after the replacement of spare parts. after confirming that the side collision performance conforms to the regulations, the shipment will be resumed. Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda also apologized for the incident and said he would start with a detailed investigation and a comprehensive collection of facts to understand the situation, determine the real cause, and strive to prevent it from happening again. Try your best to regain the trust of customers as soon as possible.

Less than a month later, however, Dafa was reported to have committed another violation in a crash test in May last year, resulting in the suspension of sales of its Dafa Rocky and Toyota Raize models. On December 20 last year, another large-scale fraud was revealed by Dafa Motor in Japan, and the official released a 162-page third-party investigation report. According to the investigation, in addition to the fake door accessories in April and the rod side collision test in May, 174 cases of fraud were found in 25 new test items, and 64 models and 3 engines were confirmed to be fraudulent, including those that have been discontinued. Toyota Motor Company, Mazda Motor Company and Subaru Motor Company were also affected by the survey. According to the results of the investigation, Dafa Motor decided to suspend shipments of all Dafa developed models currently produced in Japan and overseas, and Toyota also suspended shipments of these models.

Dafa Motor was issued a rectification order by Japan's Ministry of Land and Transport in January and revoked the production licenses of three Dafa models because it was frequently suspected of fraud during testing. At the same time, Dafa is required to take measures to prevent such incidents from happening again. To this end, Dafa Motor carried out a personnel adjustment in February. Toyota announced in February that Seiichiro Oping, president of its subsidiary Dafa Motor, would resign and be replaced by Masahiro Inou, chief executive of Latin America and the Caribbean, effective March 1. At the same time, Matsuka Chun, chairman of Dafa, stepped down on March 1.

With regard to the frequent revelations of suspected fraud by Daihatsu in recent years, Toyota CEO Henoji Sato revealed in an interview with the media that Toyota will consider whether to break the business boundary between Daifa and Daihatsu as part of the rectification measures. the company may send engineers to Daihatsu, and changing Daifa's high-level structure may also be part of the measure. However, the automobile industry is concerned that frequent large-scale recalls and counterfeiting incidents will have a great negative impact on brand image. In order to improve this situation, the most important thing is to reduce the recurrence of similar incidents.

Welcome to subscribe to the WeChat public account "Automotive Industry Focus" to get the first-hand insider information on the automotive industry and talk about things in the automotive circle. Welcome to break the news! WeChat ID autoWechat