Japanese auto giant Toyota Motor Corp said on Tuesday it was recalling 565,756 vehicles to replace their intermediate shafts and sliding yokes.

The vehicles to be recalled were manufactured under the brands of Wish, Isis, Prius, Corolla, Corolla Runx, Corolla Fielder, Corolla Spacio, Allex and Ractis made between September 2002 and November 2005.

The recall followed 31 complaints filed with Toyota between March 2004 and April this year but there has been no accident reported and attributed to the defective parts, the company said in a statement.

The intermediate shaft and the sliding yoke connect the steering wheel to the gear box.

The steering wheel could become uncontrollable if the connecting section is broken or dislocated under a strong force due to an unusual steering movement, Toyota said in a report. - AFP/de

i have never seen nor heard of a car in which the steering wheel is connected to the gearbox.

From what I read in Japanese news source yesterday these cars announced for recall use electric motor instead of hydraulics mechanism for power steering. I wonder if this affects Wish assembled and sold in Thailand.

i have never seen nor heard of a car in which the steering wheel is connected to the gearbox.

:) Mistranslation from the AFP Germany report. The bit that may potentially fail is the universal joint / sliding shaft between the steering wheel and the rack.

Apparently the failure could occur if the car is operated on full lock 'often'.

Could prove 'exciting' if it failed on the highway.

Yeah but you don't have to be driving one to get excited, it's not very nice to know that you might be driving your car what ever it is with a perfect stering box only to be hit head on by some poor bloke comming from the other way who had a dodgey stering box !