The announcement follows a similar revelation from Nissan and comes as the country’s manufacturing sector faces unusually intense scrutiny.
TOKYO — The automaker Subaru was caught up in a furor on Friday about improperly conducted vehicle inspections, the second such issue to hit a Japanese vehicle manufacturer in less than a month.
The revelation, which follows a similar admission from Nissan, comes at a time when Japan’s automobile industry — normally known for its precise engineering and exacting quality standards — is under unusually intense scrutiny.
Takata, a major supplier of safety equipment to car manufacturers around the world, declared bankruptcy in June after airbags it produced exploded, causing deaths and injuries and prompting the largest auto safety recall in history, involving tens of millions of vehicles.
Mitsubishi Motors and Suzuki Motor said last year that they had been exaggerating the fuel economy of their vehicles by cheating on tests. And most recently, Kobe Steel, whose metals are used in cars, trains and airplanes, admitted this month that it had manipulated data to make aluminum and other metals it supplied appear stronger than they really were.
Subaru said it had allowed unqualified workers to perform quality checks on cars produced for the Japanese market. It said it was preparing to recall 255,000 vehicles in Japan to have them reinspected by qualified staff, a process it said would cost 5 billion yen, or about $44 million. The cars include the Toyota 86, a sports model jointly produced by Subaru and Toyota.
“I’m distressed that our company is responsible for something that could cast doubt on the quality of Japanese manufacturing,” Yasuyuki Yoshinaga, chief executive of Subaru Corporation, said at a news conference on Friday. “This will be reported around the world.”
The inspection problem involves final quality checks that automakers perform on vehicles before they leave factories for dealerships.
After a car rolls off an assembly line, workers look it over and run it on rollers to ensure it is in working order. Points on their checklists include: Do the seats adjust properly? Do the headlights shine at the correct angle? Does the speedometer work accurately?
Such checks are a standard part of automobile manufacturing. But in Japan, the law requires that carmakers produce a special certificate for every vehicle to show it has passed examination; only then can it be registered as road worthy.
Government guidelines specify that workers who conduct these inspections must be “qualified” — though the authorities leave the details up to manufacturers.
