Honda India recalls 31,226 of Amaze and Brio cars to inspect faulty braking system

Honda Cars India has joined Indian car leader Maruti Suzuki in the recent recall shame. Honda, which is enjoying outstanding sales growth over the past one year now by swimming against the slumped market condition, has now recalled two of its bestselling cars in India. The two models involved in the recall are the very successful Amaze compact sedan and the popular Brio compact hatchback.

Honda Cars India has recalled a total of 31,226 units comprising of some variants of the Amaze and the Brio hatchback in order to check for a possible malfunction in the braking system.

Honda Cars India Limited (HCIL) said in a company statement that this is a part of the company’s precautionary measures to check for a possible malfunctioning brake. Japanese car maker will check the proportioning valve of all the non-ABS models of both the cars that were manufactured between the time period of 28^th February, 2013 and 16^th January, 2014. Among the total 31,226 affected vehicles, 15,623 are Brio units, while the rest 15,603 units are the petrol version of the Amaze, HCIL further said in its statement.

The faulty proportioning valve is a part of the braking system that helps in adjusting the brake distribution pressure to the car’s wheels. Thus, the malfunction of this brake component can prove to be really hazardous. Honda has called back all the possibly affected cars to carry out thorough inspection of the braking system and the replacement of the proportioning valve, if it is found defective. The procedure will be obviously free of cost and will be carried out in a phased manner at the Honda dealerships across the country.

The company statement added that there is a possibility of misassembled proportioning valve in some of the cars that have been recalled. Though no complaint has been reported still now, HCIL will willingly inspect and replace the proportioning valve, if required.

The owners of the Amaze and the Brio cars can check if their cars fall in the recall category or not by going to HCIL website and submitting the 17 alpha-numeric character vehicle identification number (VIN).

HCIL declared that all the ABS variants of the Brio hatchback and the Amaze petrol, and all the diesel models of the Amaze are out of this recall procedure, as the proportioning valve is not a part of the braking systems of these cars.

Very recently, the largest car maker of India Maruti Suzuki recalled a massive 1,03,311 units of its Ertiga, Swift and DZire cars to replace a faulty fuel tank component. Toyota Kirloskar Motor has recalled 44,989 units of Innova MPV over a defective cable in the steering wheel. However, the largest recall in India till date was made by General Motors by recalling 1.14 lakh units of Chevrolet Tavera MPV.

The auto manufacturers have been pro-active in precautionary recalls to ensure safety of the consumers ever since the industry body SIAM passed the voluntary recall policy in 2012.