Nissan Motor to suspend domestic production for Japan

Nissan Motor is suspending domestic production of vehicles for the home market for a minimum of two weeks to resolve misconduct in its last inspection procedures that resulted in a significant recall, it stated on Thursday.

The concern has stained Nissan’s brand in Japan, and together with a data falsification scandal at compatriot Kobe Steel Ltd, has raised questions about compliance and quality control at Japanese makers.

The nation’s second-largest automaker stated it would stop production of domestic market vehicles at all six of its Japanese assembly plants to combine their assessment lines to adhere to the country’s transport ministry requirements.

Nissan produced approximately 79,300 passenger and commercial vehicles in Japan in August. Around 27,600 of these were produced for the domestic market, accounting for about 6 percent of its international production.

The automaker confessed that uncertified specialists carried out final checks for domestic market models as some evaluation steps had been moved to other inspection lines, in offense of ministry rules.

Checks by uncertified inspectors occured even after Nissan had stated it had reinforced control of its inspection processes when the issue initially emerged late last month.

“Our emergency measures were inadequate. We were not able to change our bad habits,” CEO Hiroto Saikawa stated at a briefing at its headquarters.

He included it appeared that a concentration on increasing the efficiency of the inspection process had added to the problem, while poor communication between plant managers and foremen likewise might have been an aspect.

The misconduct has already required Nissan to recall all 1.2 million new passenger cars sold in the country during the past three years for re-inspection. The company stated on Thursday that around 34,000 extra cars would be re-inspected, probably broadening the recall by around 4,000 units.