Toyota Motor Corp. (TM) Recalls Another 400,000 Vehicles

Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) has issued yet another recall, this one covering nearly 400,000 vehicles. This brings the total number of vehicles recalled within the last few months to over 7 million.

This time around, Toyota Motor Corp. is recalling 223,000 hybrids that were sold in Japan, 53,000 Prius cars sold in Europe and 133,000 Prius and Lexus HS250h vehicles in the U.S.

Toyota said that the latest recall involving brakes may have been caused by designers and engineers who "wanted to pursue more comfortable braking" for drivers.

Toyota said that on snowy or icy roads, the brakes can "seem to soften for a split second" when the anti-lock braking system starts being used.

The braking problem is a delay, not a breaking failure, and no accidents have been reported because of the problem.

Still, Shinichi Sasaki, vice president of quality control, said that Toyota was "giving the highest priority to safety of customers, we thought we simply cannot judge that there will never be accidents."