Honda recalls 4,10,000 cars in US with defective brake pedals

Japan's second-largest automaker Honda Motor Co is recalling 4,10,000 cars in the US because of complaints about soft brake pedals. The company had, last month, recalled 3,78,758 vehicles to replace a defect in the driver's airbag inflator. (See: Honda expands airbag defect recall by an additional 378,758 vehicles)

Honda announced this week that it will recall 3,44,000 Odyssey minivans and 68,000 Element vehicles built in 2007 and 2008 after users complained that they had to press the brake pedals closer to the floor in order to stop the vehicle.

Honda said the brake problems were due to air accumulating over a period of time in the vehicle stability assist modulator and asked its affected customers to take the car to a nearest authorised dealer for necessary repairs. Honda will send out notifications to affected customers beginning end-April.

The carmaker said that although not all cars being recalled have been affected with the soft brake pedal problem, it is still recalling "all possible units to assure all customers that their vehicles will perform correctly."

Honda said the UK and European cars are not affected.

The recall comes even as Japanese carmakers that are in relentless bid to capture a larger share of the global automobile market, are struggling with quality problems.