Toyota to fix more than 750,000 vehicles outside of recall

2003 Toyota RAV4

Toyota said yesterday that it will extend warranties on about 750,000 vehicles including 235,500 RAV4 models and 500,000 Corolla and Matrix models in the United States. The move is being made to address steering and shift complaints in the respective vehicles.

The Japanese automaker is taking the action to repair the vehicles outside of recalls and said that it does not consider the problems to be a safety issue.

Owners of 2001 to 2003 model year RAV4s said that models with an automatic transaxles may experience a “harsh shift” or have a dashboard light turn on indicating a malfunction. As for the Corolla and Matrix owners from model years 2009 and 2010, complaints have been coming in about a steering drift.

Toyota spokesman Brian Lyons said that the decision to extend warranties is not safety related but one to satisfy customers. The NHTSA received more than 168 customer complaints about the steering issue that has been linked to 8 crashes and 11 injuries.

– By: Stephen Calogera

Source: Reuters