Toyota recalls 2.4 million cars in new scandal over floor mats

Feb 24, 2011, 16:19 GMT

Washington - Toyota on Thursday recalled nearly 2.4 million vehicles for similar problems with floor mats and sticking acceleration pedals that first plunged the Japanese carmaker into a damaging scandal in late 2009.

Nearly 2.2 million of the new recalls were in the United States and included its Toyota brand and luxury Lexus brand, the world's largest carmaker said in a statement.

The latest recall comes one year after Toyota was forced to pull back about 10 million cars for floor mat and sticky accelerator issues that were linked to dozens of deaths in the US.

The scandal caused a sharp drop in sales and led Toyota's chief executive Akio Toyoda to travel to the United States to accept responsibility and face tough questions before a congressional panel. Toyota was later forced to pay a fine of 48.8 million dollars for its initial slow response to the safety concerns.

The latest 'voluntary safety recall' had to do with retention clips for the floor mats that may have not been properly installed, possibly causing the mat to get stuck under the accelerator. Other floor mats had simply not been properly secured.

The new models impacted on Thursday were primarily sports-utility vehicles such as 2004-2007 RX vehicles, 2004-06 Highlanders, 2003-09 4Runners and 2006-10 RAV4s.

Europe suffered a much smaller recall of only 37,200 RX models from 2003 to 2006.

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