Nissan has suspended all productions in Japan for 2 weeks



After a misconduct with its final inspection stage procedures, a fiasco that has lead to a recall of over 1.2 million vehicles sold in Japan over the past 3 years between January 2014 to September 2017, Nissan is shutting down production at all six of its assembly plants in Japan for at least 2 weeks.

The move which halts a production average of around 1,000 cars per day, will allow the second largest Japanese automaker to investigate and address its inspection procedures to comply with the country’s transport ministry requirements.

This follows after a discovery by Japan’s Ministry Land, Infrastructure and Transportation (MLT) that unqualified technicians not properly registered were conducting final stage inspections.

The Nismo-extension of the Nissan Leaf due for Malaysia in 2018

The MLT had discovered earlier this month that unqualified technicians at the assembly plants producing Nissan vehicles were using stamps from certified technicians to sign off on final vehicle inspections, a severe violation of ministry guidelines.

As such, Nissan has taken recall measures for a repeat of the final inspections specifically on areas of steering radius, braking and acceleration capabilities, at a damaging cost in the region of USD 200 million (approx RM 845 million).

Ironically, reports from certain quarters have claimed that the catastrophe was due to a focus on increasing efficiency on the inspection line along with poor communications between plant personnel.

That said, the Japanese automaker will continue production of vehicles due for export outside of Japan, including the Nissan Leaf electric car as the bogus certifications is a local requirement by the ministry and only applies to vehicles for the domestic market.