Ford halts some China production after Toyota's woes

NEW YORK: US automaker Ford said on Thursday it was suspending production of some models in China which may be suffering the same accelerator problems as rival Toyota.

"We stopped production of the full size Transit Classic for China," a Ford spokesman said, adding the company wanted to review the models as they have the same supplier as Toyota.

Ford had only been using that pedal since December, and had experienced no accidents on the 1,663 vehicles produced with the same pedals, he stressed.

The Japanese giant last week recalled 2.3 million US cars and trucks because of problems with sticking accelerator pedals.

Toyota said that in rare cases, the pedal mechanism could become worn and harder to depress, or get stuck in a partially depressed position.