Ford said on Jan. 28 it was suspending production of a commercial vehicle sold in China which may be suffering the same accelerator problems as rival Toyota.

"We stopped production of the full size Transit Classic for China," a Ford spokesman said, adding the company wanted to review the models as they have the same supplier as Toyota.

Ford had only been using that pedal since December, and had experienced no accidents on the 1,663 vehicles produced with the same pedals, he stressed.

Ford's Chinese partner, Jiangling Motors Co. said the recall affects light buses built in Nanchang which are only distributed in China. "While there has been no report of any issue with the Transit, JMC has initiated a review of a pedal assembly part recently sourced from CTS Automotive," Jiangling said.

"The single Transit model affected by the CTS pedal review, the Transit Classic, represents fewer than 2,000 units."

Toyota suspended sales of some of its most popular vehicles in the United States on Tuesday after recalling 2.3 million U.S. cars and trucks last week because of problems with sticking accelerator pedals.

On Jan. 28, the recalls expanded to Europe and China and Toyota expanded the U.S. recalls by another 1.1 million vehicles.

The total number of cars and trucks affected by that action now stands at almost 5.3 million -- equivalent to more than two-thirds of Toyota's worldwide sales last year of 7.81 million vehicles.

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