Cars, Car Recall | featured news

General Motors Co. said Monday it will recall 1.3 million Chevrolet and Pontiac compact cars sold in the U.S., Canada and Mexico to fix power steering motors that can fail.

U.S. regulators launched a preliminary investigation into reported steering problems on the Corolla sedan on Wednesday as Toyota Motor Corp faced questions from U.S. lawmakers on whether it had ignored red flags on safety before a wave of vehicle recalls.

Honda Motor Co. is adding more than 378,000 cars to an existing safety recall for air bag inflation problems, the company said Tuesday.

Toyota dealers in five southeast states have pulled their commercials off ABC TV local affiliates, complaining about the coverage of Toyota safety problems by ABC News and its chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross.

The ad agency representing the 173 dealers told ABC affiliates last week that the shift was due to "excessive stories on the Toyota issues." The dealers shifted their commercial time buys to non-ABC stations in the same markets, "as punishment for the reporting," according to an ABC station manager.

Toyota Motor Corp. has been hit by over 100 complaints in the U.S. and Japan about brake problems with the popular Prius hybrid, the latest in a spate of quality troubles for the automaker as it grapples with massive global recalls.

Toyota is gearing up for a publicity offensive Monday morning, with a senior American executive going on television to discuss solutions to the company's recalls, as the Japanese auto maker seeks to allay consumer concerns over sudden acceleration.

The carmaker said up to 1.8 million cars in Europe could be affected and that it had identified a remedy.

Toyota Motor Corp late on Wednesday said it is expanding a recall of its cars and trucks by another 1.1 million vehicles to address the risk of accelerator pedals becoming dangerously stuck.