Overview of the Organization

 When the structure, equipment, or performance of a vehicle is likely not to comply with the Safety Regulations, the Automobile Recall Technical Verification Department technically verifies, at the request of the MLIT under the Road Transport Vehicle Act, whether the design or manufacturing process of the vehicle may cause potential failures.

With the increasingly sophisticated and complex structure and equipment of motor vehicles in line with recent improvements in safety and environmental performance, it is not easy to determine the cause of a defect when it occurs. For this reason, the Automotive Research Department recruits experts with deep knowledge and experience in motor vehicle development (design and testing) and manufacturing from among automakers, etc. as auditors for technical validations, which it conducts through detailed and specialized analyses.

Overview of technical validations

 A technical validation begins by analyzing a vehicle defect reported to the MLIT. Generally, if the cause of the defect is found in the design or manufacturing process, similar defects will occur frequently in vehicles of the same type. Therefore, we analyze how these defects occur from various angles to identify their causes.

When a vehicle defect is suspected to be involved in a traffic accident or vehicle fire in Japan, we travel to the site of the accident to investigate the vehicle as necessary. In addition, we conduct validation experiments as necessary at our facilities using the same types of parts and vehicles on which the defect has been found.
Finally, we report the cause of the defect to the MLIT after comprehensively reviewing the results of these analyses and validation experiments.


                                       
                                        A scene from validation experiments