LEXUS LS 460 Recalled for Steering Fault

[csv8]

Toyota's luxury brand has been forced to recall cars due to a potential steering fault.

Toyota's recall woes continue with the announcement that the company's luxury brand, Lexus, has been forced to recall vehicles for a potential steering defect.

Thirty seven of the flagship LS460 and its hybrid offshoot, the LS600hL, have been recalled to address an issue with their variable ratio steering.

According to the official recall notice the steering system was found it could go "off-centre by a maximum of up to 90 degrees under certain limited driving conditions such as when conducting a U-turn or accelerating quickly following a sharp turn".

The recall notice says the steering failure only occurs in certain situations but is a safety concern because it can adjust unexpectedly while driving.

"If the driver has fully turned the steering wheel to full lock and then very quickly attempts to turn it back to the centre position, the steering wheel may temporarily become off-centred before automatically returning to the centre position within one to five seconds."

Lexus is currently contacting owners by phone and is taking the unusual step of sending a representative to visit each owner face to face.

The affected Lexus LS models include some cars produced between 27 August, 2009 and 13 May, 2010.

The company plans to replace the steering's computer (ECU, or electronic control unit), which was engineered to have a failsafe mechanism that automatically disconnects the variable ratio steering and leaves the driver with regular steering as used in most other cars.

The news comes on the back of an embarrassing handling issue highlighted by an independent test conducted by a US magazine.

The magazine forced Toyota to temporarily halt sales of its GX460 luxury four-wheel-drive - a model not sold in Australia - due to concerns over its stability control system reacting too late.

Toyota has since reevaluated the operation of its stability control on other off-road models, including the LandCruiser, Kluger, RAV4 and Prado, which the GX460 is based on.

Earlier in the year Toyota was embroiled in a worldwide recall of almost nine million cars due to problems with accelerators sticking.

While no Australian cars were recalled as a result of that, more than 2000 Toyota Prius hybrid cars were recalled for software changes following brake feel complaints.