Toyota Recalls Nearly 2.8 Million Vehicles Worldwide

Toyota Motor Corp. announced in Tokyo it is preparing to recall 2.77 million vehicles worldwide to repair steering and water pump defects.

Toyota says the U.S. portion of the campaign involves 670,000 of the company's 2004-2009 model Prius hybrids but no other vehicles. All the affected cars have a defective steering gearbox link that could fail, and 350,000 also have a faulty hybrid system cooling pump.

The recall comes a month after Toyota announced a global recall of 7.4 million vehicles its largest ever for a single defective part to fix power window switches that could cause a fire.

The new campaign involves 2.14 million vehicles worldwide with the steering system defect, 10,000 hybrids with the faulty pump and 620,000 vehicles with both problems.

The steering shaft recall involves nine models in addition to the Prius. Outside the U.S., the campaign encompasses 1.5 million vehicles in Japan, 496,000 in Europe and 104,000 in other markets. Toyota says those vehicles were produced between August 2000 and last December.

The water pump recall, in addition to Prius cars in the U.S., covers 175,000 vehicles in Japan, 83,000 in Europe and 22,000 elsewhere.