Mazda Issues Recall for 215,000 Cars Due To Loss of Power Steering

August 19th, 2010 - 12:18 am ICT by Angela Kaye Mason  

Aug 18 (THAINDIAN NEWS) According to a report by Jeff Plungis in ‘Bloomberg Businessweek’, the Mazda Corporation is recalling two hundred and fifteen thousand 2007-2009 Mazda3s and Mazda5s so that they can repair an issue with the cars which the ‘National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’ (NHTSA) said causes a loss of power steering that could lead to a serious crash.

The Hiroshima, Japan based company will begin to notify those customers who bought the faulty models in September, the NHTSA stated in a notice which was posted on their website. They expect the recall to be complete by February of 2011.

The Mazda Corporation began to be investigated by federal regulators in June, testing those models which have the electronically assisted power steering. Since rust can form in the hydraulic system of the steering , the motorized pump can become damaged, and cause the power steering pump to automatically shut down so that it won’t overheat.

Mazda had decided after their investigation that the issue did not pose an “unreasonable safety risk”, according to a letter which was written by Mazda’s group manager of environmental, safety and powertrain engineering of Mazda’s North American operations, David Robertson to the NHTSA.

After the NHTSA’s investigation began, however, Mazda decided to issue a voluntary recall to fix the cars because, “we do not want any delay for field action on this issue,” Robertson said. NHTSA had already received 33 complaints at the beginning of their investigation.

The NHTSA has already revealed that they are investigating 107 complaints against the BMW Z4 models from the years 2003-2005 for a similar power steering issue. That investigation has not yet concluded.

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