Massive product recall for Japanese manufacturers

The Japanese government has ordered its leading crane manufacturers to recall thousands of single-cab mobile cranes after a series of road traffic accidents, the most recent of which was fatal.

Tadano is recalling 15,278 cranes made between 1983 and 1998, although it expects about a third of these will already be out of use. Komatsu is recalling about 1,300 cranes. Kobelco was still in discussions with the government’s construction and transport ministry at time of going to press, but is likely to have to follow suit.

A 33 year old woman was killed and five others were injured on 7 August when a crane crashed into a car on the opposite carriageway. According to reports, the operator steered the crane one way but it went the other. It emerged that there have been five other similar accidents involving Tadano cranes since 1996, as well as four involving Kobelco cranes and one involving a Komatsu.

The single-cab cranes, similar to RTs but also designed for travelling on roads, share a feature that allows the steering to be reversed at the flick of a switch when the cab is turned around. All the accidents seem to have been caused either by the operator forgetting to change the steering mode when returning to the road, or by knocking the switch accidentally. There is no suggestion on electronic or mechanical failure.

After an accident in 1992 when the operator knocked the switch accidentally, Komatsu put a protective cover over the switch. Since 1996 Komatsu has fitted these cranes with a buzzer that sounds to warn the operator if the switch has not been released before returning to road travel mode or if it is accidentally engaged. Through the product recall, this buzzer is now to be fitted to pre-1996 models.

Tadano has had a warning buzzer in models since 1998, but will now retrofit the alarm in the pre-1998 models that are subject to the recall. The company’s slowness to respond to the issue earned it a rebuke from construction and transport minister Kazuo Kitagawa and an improvement notice was served on the company to improve its management.

Tadano expects the cost of the recall to be Y150m ($1.4m), but still expects to make Y3.3bn ($31.6m) net profit on sales of Y100bn ($959m) for the year to 31 March 2005.

In July 2004 Tadano issued a recall notice for 425 of its TR-160M rough terrain cranes manufactured between September 1997 and May 2004 because of problems with replacement brake hoses installed after cranes had left the factory.

Japan’s industrial automotive sector is still reeling from a scandal involving Mitsubishi Fuso Truck & Bus Corporation, which in May issued a recall of 168,000 trucks for a wide variety of faults, including clutch, brake and steering defects. A further 450,000 trucks, dating back to 1992, were added to the list the following month. Mitsubishi Fuso admitted suppressing information for years about defects suspected of causing several accidents.