Mitsubishi Fuso Truck & Bus Corp. announced Wednesday it will issue recalls possibly in mid-December for about 130,000 large vehicles to replace front- and rear-wheel hubs, including vehicles produced this month.
Included in the recall will be Super Great trucks and Aero King buses manufactured between June 1996 and November 2004 for their front-wheel hubs, and the same models manufactured between July 1983 and this month for their rear-wheel hubs.
The hubs will be replaced with newly developed, stronger ones.
Although there have been no reports of any accidents, the scandal-tainted truck maker said it has received 16 reports concerning the cracking and breaking of rear-wheel hubs.
The number of vehicles covered by the latest recall accounts for 61 percent of the total number of Mitsubishi Fuso's large vehicles currently on the road, which stands at about 220,000.
The firm developed new hub strength criteria after it became embroiled in defect coverups in which faulty hubs in large Mitsubishi Fuso vehicles caused a number of accidents, including one fatality.
The front- and rear-wheel hubs that will be covered in the recall are said to have fallen short of the new criteria.
Since Nov. 16, Mitsubishi Fuso has stopped shipping and marketing new vehicles that will be recalled, including the Super Great trucks, pending the installment of new hubs. The firm is expected to resume the marketing in mid-January.
Since the defect coverups surfaced in March, Mitsubishi Fuso, spun off from scandal-tainted Mitsubishi Motors Corp. in January 2003, has already recalled 917,000 vehicles covering nine models.