— Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (MMC) today submitted its weekly report to the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport on the current status of recalls and other improvement measures stemming from past "repair directives," or so-called shiji-kaishu.
Today's report is the second weekly report submitted by the company.
MMC submitted its first weekly report on June 16 to update the public on the current status of the 26 recalls and four improvement measures resulting from past recall directives announced on June 2.
On June 18, the company reported on its investigation into accidents and fires related to vehicles that were subject to repair directives.
Today's report outlines measures the company is taking based on this investigation.
Current status of submissions
|
Submission date |
June 4 |
June 18 |
June 30 |
By end July |
Recalls
(26) |
No. of cases
(accumulated) |
1 |
10
(11) |
8
(19) |
7
(26) |
No. of units
(accumulated) |
115 |
50,837
(50,952) |
12,501
(63,453) |
92,775
(155,228) |
Improvement
measures
(4) |
No. of cases
(accumulated) |
|
1
(1) |
|
3
(4) |
No. of units
(accumulated) |
|
12 |
|
54,886
(54,898) |
N.B. No. of units for Japan only
Of the 30 cases related to past repair directives, MMC had submitted a total of 11 recalls and one improvement measure as of June 18.
The company plans to submit a further eight recalls on June 30.
MMC has also reported it will submit the remaining seven recalls and three improvement measures by the end of July, completing the submission of all 30 cases related to repair directives.
Accidents/fires in Japan
As previously reported, MMC extended its investigations to include product information reports at dealers (information before April 2001 no longer kept at MMC), information from the company's customer relations department, product liability suits, and notes on repairs carried out by dealers.
As a result, the company has confirmed that one accident and two fires occurred in Japan to vehicles related to the 30 repair directives.
MMC also reported on June 18 that it was investigating a fire that occurred in the city of Yokosuka in September 1996.
A report from the company's technical center has since confirmed that there is a connection between the fire and the recall.
This case is one of the two mentioned above.
The company has also confirmed that nine people were injured when their vehicle was stationary as a result of defective springs in the rear tailgate of the 1992 model year Libero.
On June 18, MMC reported that it had found some 20,000 product information reports at dealers.
As of today, the company has now gathered 56,000 reports from dealers.
MMC is currently visiting dealers to check if there are any more product information reports other than those already found.
The oldest report found so far is from March 1986.
MMC also went through about 100,000 inquiries dating back to October 1992 received by the customer relations department looking for information on accidents or fires related to the 30 repair directive cases.
The company investigated defects related to 81 product liability cases stretching back to October 1995.
In addition, MMC checked the notes of repairs carried out by dealers to look for information on accidents or fires for all models with related defects that were subject to repair directives.
Progress of extended investigation
Based on the point of view of its customers, MMC decided to also reexamine all documents inside and outside the company that may contain information on defects relating to any vehicle, regardless of whether a repair directive had been issued or not.
A 110-member team — made up of employees from the Quality Management Office, manufacturing, sales, and the new CSR Promotion Office to be established on June 29 — is now conducting a probing quality audit and will present its finding by the end of July.
Although the minutes from internal meetings on quality were confiscated by the authorities in January this year, MMC has asked for copies of the documents to continue its investigation.
