Honda City 2007 models in India recalled, 646000 cars recalled worldwide

Honda recalls 646,000 Jazz/Fit, City cars worldwide; recalls 2007 model Honda City cars in India

Honda Motor Company, based in Japan, has announced that it will recall a total of 646,000 units of the Honda Fit/Jazz and the Honda City models worldwide, including 140,000 units in the United States. The company has also said that Honda City cars (essentially the Honda Fit abroad) would also be recalled.

The recall includes Jazz models – also called Fit in some countries – that were manufactured in Japan, China, Thailand, India, Malaysia, and Brazil.

The models to be recalled have been sold in Asia, North America, South America, Europe and South Africa and, but not those sold Japan, an official of Honda Motor Company said.

In all, 619,000 Honda Jazz, or Fit, models will be recalled worldwide, and 27,000 Honda City cars in Asia.

8532 Honda City cars recalled in India

The Fit is Honda’s best-selling car model in Japan. In India, the Honda City was the company’s top selling car, easily beating every other small sedan in India.

Honda SIEL said that the cars would be recalled for a preventive parts replacement of the power window switch, which leads to smoke entering the cabin when water enters the power switch.

We have not heard about this problem in India at all so far – but Honda is being proactive here, and that has to be commended.

The Honda Jazz currently being sold in India is a newer model, and this problem does not affect the car – no recalls, therefore, for the Jazz.

The South African unit of Honda Motor Company said it will recall Honda Jazz cars made between 2002 and 2008 to inspect them the following an incident in Cape Town, South Africa, in September 2009 in which a toddler burned to death in a Honda Jazz supermini car. Vanilla Nurse had died on her second birthday when the car in which she slept caught fire.

Vanilla was sleeping in the Jazz car while her parents had been doing shopping to prepare for her second birthday. Her mother, Camilla Colley, rushed back, when the car’s alarm went off, only to find the car in flames.

The company said it has launched an “extensive investigation” to find out the cause of the incident in Cape Town and that cause of the fire has not yet been determined.

In a statement, Honda said the recall of the Fit, Jazz and City models was to fix a faulty master-switch, which could cause water to enter the power window switch and, in some cases, lead to a fire.

According to Honda, three cases of fire owing to the defective master-switch have been reported – two of them in the United States, and one in South Africa.

Honda said it will recall 171,000 of its Jazz supermini models in the United Kingdom after the death of the toddler in a Jazz supermini in South Africa.

Honda UK said in a press release that it will contact owners of Honda Jazz cars, which were made between 2001 and 2008.

Meanwhile, Honda Ireland said it is recalling 3,000 cars over a faulty electric-window switch that may overheat and could eventually cause a fire. The recall involves the previous generation of the Honda Jazz model – specifically, the Jazz cars registered between 2002 and 2009.

The fault was initially spotted by a distributor for Honda Jazz in Ireland two and a half years ago when a defective switch was replaced in an older Jazz model.

The recall of Honda cars comes at a time when over one million drivers of Toyota cars in the United Kingdom are waiting to find out whether their car has a potentially dangerous defect in the accelerator pedal.

Worldwide, as many as 8 million Toyota cars have been recalled.

In the United States, 19 incidents of death have been reported in which Toyota cars accelerated “for no reason.”

Toyota, based in Japan, said that, in Europe alone, there have been 26 reported incidents of the accelerator pedal of a Toyota car staying depressed on the floor mat even after the driver has taken his foot off the gas pedal.