As per some recently published report, from Detroit, Aston Martin is recalling 17,590 cars – almost 75% of all cars that it has manufactured since 2007. It was discovered that counterfeit plastic material was used by a Chinese sub-supplier that supplied a particular part for the luxury sports car manufacturers. All left left-hand-drive Aston Martin models manufactured since November 2007 and all right-hand-drive models built after 2012 May are being called back for it is feared that there is a high chance of breaking the accelerator pedal arm due to the counterfeit material.
According to a spokesman from the company, nearly 75% of all cars manufactured during this period have been affected. According to the documents filed by Aston Martin to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration it was found that the Chinese subcontractor, Shenzhen Kexiang Mould Tool Co. Ltd. used counterfeit plastic in molding the accelerator pedal arms and the raw material was actually supplied by a Dongguan based company – Synthetic Plastic Raw Material Co. Ltd.
As per the statements from Sarah Calam, Aston Martin spokeswoman, so far there had been reports for 22 failed parts and there is also no report of any accident or injury caused by or related with the issue. NHTSA documents suggests that there is an increased risk of crash due to accelerator paddle arm breaking that will render the driver unable to either maintain or change the speed. This has come at a time when Aston Martin – a company jointly owned by private equity investors and Kuwaiti is struggling for funds for new vehicle development and staying in competition with its rivals in the industry like Volkswagen Bentley or BMW Rolls Royce.
Aston Martin presently sells cars in 41 countries and as per Sarah Calam out of 17,590 cars those are being recalled, 7,271 vehicles are from European countries and 5,001 from the United States of America. This new recall replaces the previous call that was made during May last year which was further extended in October. Due to this particular development the company has also decided to be directly supplied by DuPont distributor and both the companies have also sent experts to China for directly supervising the production of the accelerator pedal arms and also for verifying the raw material that is being used in manufacturing them. Calam also said that Aston Martin is actually planning to shift its pedal arm production from China to UK to efficiently counter this piracy problem.
