Nissan Motor said on March 3 that it would recall nearly 540,000 vehicles worldwide, most of them in the United States, due to brake pedal defects and faulty fuel gauges.
Nissan -- Japan's third-largest carmaker, and partnered with France's Renault -- said it plans "to inspect and, if necessary, repair brake pedal pins and fuel-gauge components on certain trucks and minivans".
"When the pin loosens, the brake pedal gets wobbly. In the worst case, the brake pedal slips towards the outside and it becomes difficult to operate on the road," said Nissan spokesman Mitsuru Yonekawa.
"No accidents or injuries have been reported with these issues," it added. The company said three customer complaints of brake pedal pins loosening and causing problems with braking had been reported in the United States. Nissan said it inspected 6,000 vehicles following the first report in December but found no defects.
The recalls also affect Canada, Mexico, the Middle East, Ukraine, Russia and Taiwan.
The models with faulty brake pedals are the Titan pickup trucks, the Armada and Infiniti QX56 SUVs and Quest minivans built between 2008 and 2010, the company said. Nissan plans to pull 178,916 units from U.S. roads and another 25,869 in other countries to fix the brake pedal pins.
The fuel gauge defect recall covers the Titan, Armada and Infiniti QX56 built from 2005 to 2008, and the Frontier, Pathfinder and Xterra produced between January and March 2006 and between October 2007 and January 2008.
The problem affects 418,865 U.S. vehicles and 53,253 elsewhere, Nissan said.
Both problems occur in some of the 2008 models of the Titan, Armada and Infiniti QX56.
"Vehicles at higher mileage levels may have fuel gauges which incorrectly indicate the amount of fuel in the tank. This may result in the vehicle running out of fuel while the gauge reads greater than empty," a Nissan statement said.
Until their fuel gauges are repaired, customers with affected vehicles are encouraged to maintain a fuel level of at least half a tank.
Nissan blamed the manufacturing errors on its suppliers. A spokesman said Canada-based KSR International had manufactured the faulty brake pedal pins, while Paris-based Inergy Automotive Systems was responsible for the fuel gauge problem.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2010
