Toyota NZ recalling 8500 cars

Toyota New Zealand is recalling about 8500 cars to repair defective front lights, a company spokesman said today.

"It affects Toyota Corolla, RAV4 and Echo models," Spencer Morris, Toyota NZ after-sales divisional manager, said.

All vehicles involved were produced between May 2000 and September 2002, and are being recalled because of a defective switch of front lights caused by a design problem.

Mr Morris said the problem also affects imported used-cars from Japan -- "ones we have imported and those brought in by a third party".

These involved other makes of cars.

"Echo in Japan is sold as Vitz and there are other models that are based on Echo, so there is a slightly wider range of namebadges, but we will be contacting all owners once we get the details."

Mr Morris warned Toyota NZ does not yet have the parts to fix the cars available.

"It's likely we won't be actively contacting customers until November as we have to source quite a few replacement switches," he said.

- NZPA