EGYPT'S Consumer Protection Agency (CPA) has received 33 complaints over gearbox problems in Toyota Corolla cars imported from South Africa. "This problem has nothing to do with the accelerator pedal crisis, which has hit the Toyota Corolla in other parts of the world. Owners of this model in Egypt, which were manufactured in South Africa, have complained about gearbox problems," Saeed el-Alfy, the head of CPA, told the independent daily newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm in an interview. "The problems emerged after adding an advanced system merging manual and automatic clutch and applied electronic control to make driving in congested traffic easy. We asked officials at Toyota Egypt Co to fix this problem within two days. Amr Fahim, the CPA executive manager, said he would meet with Honda officials in Egypt to discuss the impact of a recent Honda recall of around 440,000 units from the US. "Egypt imports Honda cars directly from Japan, as such the Egyptian agent has no business with Honda producers in the US," Fahim said. Toyota Motors declared on February 3 that the accelerator pedal problems have led to the recall of millions of its cars around the world, which is expected to burn a two-billion dollar hole in its earnings. The Japanese giant, its brand image tarnished by a series of safety issues, said the recall costs and lost sales were expected to reduce profits by as much as 180 billion yen ($2 billion) in the year to March 2010. Toyota is pulling almost eight million vehicles worldwide – roughly its entire global sales figure last year – to fix problems with accelerator pedals that are slow to spring back or that stick to floor mats. The new projections take into account the impact of the recalls, senior managing director Takahiko Ijichi told reporters. Toyota is also facing complaints about brake failure with its popular Prius hybrid, in a further blow to its brand image. The company said it was preparing to announce safety measures relating to the Prius brake complaints. And in another a related event, Japanese automaker Honda on Wednesday recalled 437,763 vehicles worldwide, mostly in North America, to fix defective airbags. "Honda has decided to expand a recall related to a defect in the driver's SRS airbag installed on certain vehicles produced in 2001 and 2002 and has issued a notification in North America and Japan," it said in a statement. "This recall will also be conducted in other affected regions and countries," it added. "The total number of vehicles subject to this expanded recall is 437,763 units worldwide."
