Aston Martin has recalled 17,590 sports cars after discovering that a Chinese sub-supplier has used counterfeit plastic material in the car's accelerator pedal arms.
The British sports carmaker announced on Wednesday, February 5, that most of the left-hand drive models built since November 2007 and all right-hand drive models built since May 2012 were affected by the recall. Only the Vanquish model is not affected by the recall.
The carmaker says that the accelerator pedal arms may break, which may result in a crash. However, Aston Martin claims that it has not received any reports of accidents due to the counterfeit plastic material used in the pedal arms.
"Although there has been no report of any accidents or injuries involving the throttle pedal. Aston Martin's commitment to customer safety is paramount, which is why the company is taking this action," said an Aston Martin spokeswoman. "The recall work takes up to an hour to complete and will be carried out with no charge to the customer."
According to documents filed with the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Aston Martin said that Shenzhen Kexiang Mould Tool Co Limited, a Chinese subcontractor that moulds the affected accelerator pedal arms for the cars, was using counterfeit DuPont plastic material. The material was supplied to Aston Martin by Synthetic Plastic Raw Material Co Ltd of Dongguan.
The company spokeswoman also said that the financial impact due to the counterfeit product used in the cars was small, but she did not confirm any specific amount.
The issue has made the car maker procure relevant material directly from a DuPont distributor. Both Aston Martin and Dupont have sent people to China to supervise the production of all pedal arms and verify each bag of DuPont plastic material.
Aston Martin now plans to shift production of the pedal arms from China to the UK in 2014.
In May 2013, Aston Martin found that the accelerator pedal arms did not meet company specifications and recalled 2,832 cars globally. The carmaker then expanded the recall to 16,825 cars and required the use of material made by DuPont.
However, in December 2013, when one of the replacement parts broke during installation by a U.S. dealer, the company froze the recall and found that counterfeit DuPont plastic material were being used in the arm pedals.
The current recall includes all the cars previously repaired by the company. Aston Martin will now replace the accelerator pedal assemblies of the affected cars.
