BANGKOK — Toyota has stopped gross sales and deliveries of its Yaris Ativ in Thailand, senior officers mentioned on Monday, after its affiliate Daihatsu rigged a part of the door in side-collision security exams.

Talking at a press convention in Bangkok, Toyota’s CEO for the Asia area, Masahiko Maeda, mentioned the issue might have occurred on account of strain to shorten the event time of the Ativ, including that the automobiles clients have been utilizing have been protected.

Toyota mentioned it’s working with the Thai authorities to renew gross sales of the mannequin, which is produced in Toyota’s Gateway plant in Chachoengsao province, including that additional investigation was underway.

“If improvement had been carried out beneath applicable situations, this sort of downside would in fact not have occurred,” Maeda mentioned.

“I feel the truth that it nonetheless occurred, means there was some sort of strain on the improvement web site,” he mentioned, including that the car’s comparatively massive dimension might have posed a problem to Daihatsu, which specializes within the manufacturing of small vehicles.

Toyota and Daihatsu disclosed final month they have been investigating how a part of the door in side-collision security exams carried out for about 88,000 small vehicles had been modified for the aim of side-on crash security testing.

Daihatsu has mentioned that about 76,000 of these automobiles have been Yaris Ativs primarily certain for Thailand, Mexico and the Gulf Cooperation Council.

The Gulf Cooperation Council contains Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.

Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda mentioned he had visited the corporate’s Gateway plant in Chachoengsao province for the primary time in a decade to guarantee employees, additionally saying he had come to the Southeast Asian nation as a result of he beloved it.

Toyoda has a private attachment to Thailand, calling it his “house away from house” at an occasion to have fun Toyota’s sixtieth anniversary of operations within the nation late final 12 months.

He has mentioned that late Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej was the one international chief who expressed his confidence within the firm after a string of huge remembers prompted U.S. investigations and compelled him to testify earlier than Congress in 2010.

Toyota President Koji Sato, who took excessive job from Toyoda on April 1, was not on the press convention.

For Daihatsu, which turned a completely owned Toyota subsidiary in 2016 when Toyoda was president, Southeast Asia is a crucial market, with manufacturing amenities in Indonesia and Malaysia, although it has no factories in Thailand.

Thailand is Toyota’s fourth-biggest international middle by manufacturing quantity after Japan, the U.S. and China. It produced about 59,000 automobiles, together with fashions of its luxurious model Lexus, within the nation final 12 months.