More than 5,000 cars in Singapore could be affected by Toyota Motor's latest recall of close to 1.6 million vehicles worldwide.
The exercise, following a string of similar ones in recent months, is to fix faulty engine oil hoses that could develop pinhole leaks with age.
If left unattended, the leaks could worsen and lead to engine damage.
About 1.3 million of the affected vehicles are in North America, with the rest in 90 other countries, including Japan. The cars were manufactured between 2005 and last year.
Repairs on 45,000 vehicles in Japan have already been rolled out since October, said Toyota spokesman Ririko Takeuchi Tuesday.
In Singapore, the bulk of affected vehicles are parallel imports. These include models like the Sienna minivan, Harrier SUV, Estima MPV, Blade hatchback, Mark X Zio sedan and Vanguard crossover.
According to Land Transport Authority statistics, more than 4,000 such cars were registered here in the last three years alone.
Toyota Motor Asia Pacific did not have information about how many parallel imports were affected as such cars are officially meant only for the Japanese domestic market and not for export.
Borneo Motors, Toyota's agent here, has already initiated what it calls a "customer satisfaction campaign", a popular industry euphemism for recalls.
It said 321 Lexus RX350's made between January 2006 and June 2008 are affected.
The company's managing director, Koh Ching Hong, said he was confident that the latest campaign was not safety related.
"I believe this is not a safety recall," he said. "I think Toyota has learnt from recent episodes that they cannot hide a safety recall by calling it something else."
The last Toyota recall that affected cars in Singapore was the one for the Prius petrol-electric hybrid.
Safety issues have already forced Toyota, the world's biggest automaker, to recall more than 8.5 million vehicles worldwide.
In the United States, the oil-hose problem also affects the best-selling Camry and two Lexus models.
Meanwhile, an analysis of US government documents has shown that many Camrys built before 2007, which were not subject to recalls, have been linked to a comparable number of speed-control problems as the recalled Camrys.
The 2002 Camry, for example, was not part of the recall but had about 175 speed control complaints, with about half involving crashes, the New York Times reported.
By comparison, the 2007 Camry, which was recalled, was the subject of about 200 speed-control complaints, with fewer than a quarter of those resulting in accidents.
The news comes as Toyota global quality control chief Shinichi Sasaki and North American president Yoshimi Inaba were scheduled to appear before a Senate committee Tuesday for a third hearing on the company's handling of consumer complaints about sudden acceleration.
On Monday, Toyota continued its worldwide damage-control campaign with an apology issued by vice-chairman Kazuo Okamoto to the automaker's customers in Europe for its safety issues and the concerns that they caused.
Okamoto's apology followed public apologies by Toyota president Akio Toyoda in China and the US.
