Dubai: Hyundai Motor on Wednesday announced it will recall 47,000 of its new Sonata sedans to fix faulty door latches.
The latest recall will not affect the UAE's Hyundai customers as the models introduced in the UAE come from its Korean plant, an official confirmed.
Hyundai Motor's recall announcement seeks to avoid the damaging criticism Japanese rival Toyota Motor Corp faces for its handling of a series of safety problems.
The South Korean automaker announced the voluntary recall after earlier saying it would suspend US sales of its 2011 Sonata, a move analysts said was in contrast to Toyota's sluggish response to concerns about sudden unintended acceleration.
"The latest recall does not affect the models in the UAE," Faisal Yassin, manager of Hyundai UAE, told Gulf News in an interview.
"The specifications of the cars imported into the UAE and the Middle East from South Korea are different from those manufactured in the US and Canadian plants."
The latest recall is not due to any sever safety mechanism. It's about door locks, he said.
"Although the defect is very minor relating to the door locks, which could be easily adjusted, we do not have similar problems with those available in the UAE."
The global recall will affect about 1,300 of the 2011 Sonata sedans built through February 16 at Hyundai's plant in Alabama and sold to customers, plus 46,000 YF Sonata units produced through December 6 in South Korea.
The new model started to be sold from September 2009 in South Korea and this month in the United States.
Hyundai notified dealers late on Monday of potential faults in the front-door latches of the new model that could affect 5,000 vehicles, and the stop-sale order was put into effect at US dealers on Tuesday.
