Automaker, Japanese Automaker | featured news

The most problem-free cars and trucks are made by Honda and Toyota, but Ford is closing in fast and General Motors is making big quality improvements, according to Consumer Reports magazine's 2010 reliability rankings.

Toyota is recalling 1.53 million Lexus, Avalon and other models, mostly in the U.S. and Japan, for brake fluid and fuel pump problems, the latest in a string of quality problems for the world's No. 1 automaker.

A strong customer demand for the vast range of Toyota has helped the company to cross the 200000 plus sales mark in the month of September. The company has been a leader in 7 categories of its vehicles and has not fell below the third place in whichever category it had participated.

Toyota Motor Corp. has settled a lawsuit brought by relatives of four family members killed in a high-speed crash near San Diego that galvanized attention around safety flaws of Toyotas and led to the recalls of millions of cars, a report published Friday said.

Toyota Motor Corp said on Thursday that it would recall about 1.13 million Corolla and Matrix cars in the United States due to defective electronic control units that could cause the vehicles to stall.

Honda is recalling 197,000 Accord and 117,000 Civic sedans as well as 69,000 Element sport-utility vehicles in the U.S. to fix a potential problem that could allow a driver to remove the key when the car is in gear.

Among the Toyota recalls are 373,000 2000-4 Avalon models for a steering problem that could cause a crash, and 39,000 2003-7 Lexus LX 470 S.U.V.'s for a steering defect.

Toyota started recalling more than 90,000 luxury Lexus and Crown vehicles Monday in Japan over defective engines - the latest setback for the automaker beset with quality problems.

Toyota Motor Corp. said Thursday about 270,000 cars sold worldwide - including luxury Lexus sedans - have potentially faulty engines, the latest quality lapse to hit the automaker following massive global recalls of top-selling models.

Nissan Motor Co recalled Infiniti G35 sedans and coupes affecting as many as 134,000 cars due to a connector that could cause airbags not to deploy during a crash.