Toyota drivers in Britain will be forced to wait another week before the company begins repairs on cars with faulty accelerator pedals, as part of a $2 billion (£1.26 billion) recall that has forced the Japanese carmaker to suspend delivery of thousands of new cars in the UK.

Toyota revealed last night that up to 180,865 vehicles could be affected in the UK, as well as 1.8 million in total across Europe and millions more in the US and Japan. It has identified eight models as potentially at risk of the defect, which can cause the accelerator to stick, but has stressed that very few are actually faulty.

The models affected are the IQ, Aygo, Yaris, Auris, Corolla, Avensis and Verso. The parts needed will not arrive in the UK until next week, with the first repairs scheduled for 10 February.

Toyota confirmed that it has stopped delivering new vehicles of affected models to British customers. The vehicles will not be released until they have been fitted with a new part, which could take weeks until the backlog is cleared.

More than 10,000 Britons have jammed the Toyota switchboards in the last few days, wanting to know whether to continue driving their cars. Angry customers are also demanding to know why recall notices have only just been issued when Toyota has known of the accelerator defect since last winter.

It has also emerged that Toyota may be considering an additional recall of the latest models of its Prius hybrid cars, amid a widening probe of brake faults that have dogged its flaghship “green” vehicles in the US and Japan.

On the orders of the Japanese Government, Toyota is currently investigating 85 complaints relating to incidents where the Prius brakes have intermittently stopped working. The problem has risen in frequency over winter months and is thought to be linked to occasions where the car was driven over snow or ice.

Toyota admitted that there were design snags with the way that the two braking systems used in hybrid cars are linked. The company also said that it was looking into whether the fault applied to other vehicles in its hybrid range.

There are suspicions that Toyota may have attempted to keep the problem with its Prius brakes out of the public eye. An investigation into the alleged brake faults has been going on since August. It then redesigned the brake system for all Prius models sold since January but had not yet deemed it necessary to inform existing customers of the problem.

Hiroyuki Yokoyama, a Toyota managing officer in charge of quality control, said today: “We, as a maker, want to take some sort of measures to explain to our customers and are studying it now. We’ll make an announcement before long.

“This is a problem where you can stop your car safely if you push the brake pedal strongly.”

Rather than admit that there was an outright defect with the Prius, Mr Yokoyama described the temporary brake failures as a “phenomenon”, with the main effect being that drivers have felt uncomfortable at the temporary sensation that the brakes are not deploying.

The Japanese Government, traditionally a supporter of its largest company, demanded that Toyota “firmly investigate” the brake problems with the Prius. The consumer affairs minister, the trade minister and the transport minister have all held emergency meetings with senior Toyota staff over the past 24 hours. The US Transport secretary, Ray LaHood, has also demanded a conversation with Toyota’s president, Akio Toyoda, to discuss the handling of the US accelerator-related recalls.

Mr LaHood said that his department’s investigation of the accelerator pedals would be expanded.

He warned: “We are not finished with Toyota yet.” He caused a furore earlier in the day by telling Toyota owners: “My advice is . . . stop driving it. Take it to the dealer.” Toyota shares dropped sharply on the New York Stock Exchange until he retracted the remarks.

Despite having been dogged by similar problems for several months, including recalls of eight million vehicles, Toyota today announced a net profit of $1.7 billion (£1.06 billion) for the three months to December — its strongest profit in six quarters.

However, today’s results do not include the impact of the global recall which Toyota said will cost the company $2 billion. Despite the financial impact of the recall, the Japanese carmaker still expects to make a net profit of $879 million for the year to March 2010.

Toyota shares plunged 3.5 per cent in Tokyo trading today and are now at lows seen during the depths of the financial crisis.

Toyota’s ongoing struggle to restore its reputation came against a backdrop of surprisingly strong financial performance. The world’s largest automaker said that it now expected that the current fiscal year ending on March 31 would see the company return to profit. Its previous forecast was for a loss of Y200 billion, but net income is now expected to be Y80 billion. A year previously, the company made its first full-year loss since it began making cars.

Much of the impetus behind Toyota’s return to form came from the US — the very market in which it will now have to fight hardest to regain consumer confidence. Analysts in Tokyo said that there remained a “huge” possibility that the company would miss its forecasts because of spiralling recall costs and unexpectedly heavy damage to its brand.

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Source : The Times