Mitsubishi to recall 700,000 vehicles

TOKYO (DPA): Japan's Mitsubishi Motors Corporation said on Wednesday that it will recall about 700,000 vehicles for free repairs, one day after Japan's Transport Ministry said the automaker concealed information on defective vehicles.

Mitsubishi said it will recall 14 models of passenger cars and trucks, including its popular Pajero, Galant and Lancer vehicles, manufactured from May 1992 to this month. The recall is expected to cost the company 5 billion yen (US$46.3 million).

Among the problems feared to be affecting the cars, a Galant model may be leaking fuel while an engine fault in a Lancer model may cause the engine to stall suddenly, Mitsubishi said.

The announcement came after Transport Ministry officials inspected the Tokyo head office and some of its dealers earlier this month over the automaker's suspected cover-up of complaints from users at the time of a regular inspection by authorities.

The authorities made the inspection after receiving an anonymous phone call last month that claimed Mitsubishi had not submitted some documents during a regular inspection in November.

The ministry inspects all automakers once a year to check whether customer complaints are being addressed properly.

During the inspection, the authorities ordered Mitsubishi to submit the documents in question, which were apparently put into employees' lockers instead of the usual place, they said.

Mitsubishi has reportedly received a total of 460 complaints about the Galant and 13 other models.

The ministry suspects that Mitsubishi may have broken the law on transport vehicles by such practices.

The Japanese automaker recalled 180,000 vehicles in May at a cost of 4.1 billion yen.