Mitsubishi recall could stall school transport

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Hundreds of schoolchildren may be stuck at home on Monday unless mechanics can give up to 15 per cent of the country's school buses a clean bill of health.

Bus operators and mechanics expect a hectic weekend checking the front wheels of between 70 and 300 imported Mitsubishi Fuso buses for faulty hubs in a rare product recall by the Land Transport Safety Authority of 843 used vehicles, including 485 trucks.

This follows revelations from Japan, which have led to the arrests of several former Mitsubishi officials, that a fatal crash there in 2002 was caused by a concealed design fault rather than a manufacturing problem as claimed earlier.

A wheel flew off a truck there, killing a mother and injuring her two children.

Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation, which is 20 per cent owned by Mitsubishi Motors Corporation and 65 per cent by DaimlerChrysler, began recalling about 110,000 trucks in Japan as long ago as March.

A spokesman for Mitsubishi Motors New Zealand said yesterday that it had no legal obligation for used imports on this country's roads, or ownership records, but approached the Japanese company for chassis numbers to match with vehicle registrations.

The spokesman, Philip Dinniss, said obtaining enough information to start the recall here had been a long process, but the Japanese company had been persuaded to supply parts free of charge.

Although the safety authority fears it will take up to nine months for all hubs to be replaced, Mr Dinniss said he hoped some replacement parts would arrive in about two weeks for any found unsafe.

Owners will have to pay $90 to $200 for inspections likely to take up to 40 minutes for each wheel.

The safety authority said initially that it expected fewer than 10 buses and trucks would have to be kept off the road after the checks, which must be completed by July 2.

This followed advice from Mitsubishi Fuso that fewer than 0.1 per cent of about 97,000 vehicles tested in Japan after the 2002 crash were found with hubs "outside the limits of safe wear".

But last night, safety authority director David Wright said one vehicle in the South Island was found yesterday with a cracked hub, although he did not know if it was a bus or truck.

Authority spokesman Andy Knackstedt acknowledged the failure rate in New Zealand may be higher than in Japan, given the older ages of vehicles here.

Even those passing muster will have to be rechecked every six months until their hubs are replaced.

The vehicles under recall were made in Japan between 1983 and 1998, and the authority says they include 103 motor caravans listed with a bus code as well as 255 known buses, of which 72 are on school runs.

But the Bus and Coach Association believes up to 300 Fuso buses are used to carry schoolchildren, accounting for up about 15 per cent of the national school fleet.

Executive director John Collyns said he hoped tour operators would provide coaches to plug gaps left by faulty buses or those that could not be checked by Monday.

The recall came during classes yesterday, but Mr Collyns said the Education Ministry decided in consultation with his association that the relative risk of leaving children stranded on roadsides after school was greater than that of a wheel falling off a bus.

Ministry spokeswoman Christine Seymour confirmed buses would not be allowed to collect children on Monday without passing inspections.

Auckland school-bus operator Howard Dickie of H.C.D. Transport was dismayed to receive recall notices for three of his five buses.

He said he had run and maintained them meticulously for five years without any hint of a safety concern, and the recall was "a typical kneejerk" response.

But he said the three buses would be inspected over the weekend in time for school on Monday.

He was undeterred from collecting about 180 children from three private schools yesterday, believing parents would have been far more concerned had he left them in the lurch.