Carmaker Aston Martin has recalled 17,590 cars, and bringing production of an accelerator pedal back to England after finding that a Chinese pedal supplier used counterfeit material.
The Gaydon-based luxury carmaker is recalling cars built since 2007 and sold around the world so owners can have the part — which is fitted to the cars' accelerator pedal — replaced.
The recall applies to all of the group's cars with the exception of Volante models and the new Vanquish coupe.
No pedal breakages had been reported so far, said the company, but a spokesman for Aston Martin told the BBC: “Customer safety is very important and to change the pedal takes less than an hour, so take the car and get it replaced is what we're saying.
“It's very important to say that there have not been any incidents or accidents.”
In a letter sent last month to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Aston Martin said tests had revealed the failed pedal arm was manufactured from material “consistent with nylon 6/6 material, rather than DuPont Co.'s nylon 6 as specified in our drawing specification.”
The letter went on, “all counterfeit material and all pedals arms made of this suspect material have been quarantined.”
“DuPont recognizes that counterfeiting exists in virtually every region and across multiple product lines,” the company noted in a written statement. “This case reinforces that the best protection that customers and end users have against counterfeit products and the potential consequences of their use in highly engineered systems is to ensure that they and their supply chains buy only from DuPont and their authorized distributors.”
Reuters, citing papers filed with NHTSA, identified the molder as Shenzhen Kexiang Mould Tool Co. Ltd. and Synthetic Plastic Raw Material Co. Ltd. of Donggong as the material supplier.
Aston Martin said one of its U.S. dealers had reported a throttle pedal arm breaking during its installation as part of an earlier recall, initiated last year.
