Toyota is to recall nearly 1.3m cars worldwide to carry out safety checks, after reports of defects including airbags deploying inadvertently in some models.
The Japanese carmaker said it would recall some 907,000 Corolla and Corolla Matrix vehicles and 385,449 Lexus IS's. Most of the affected vehicles are in the US, while no UK models are involved.
The move is the latest in a long line of technical glitches that have dogged Toyota in recent years.
In October it recalled 7.4m vehicles worldwide, including 138,000 in the UK, over faulty window switches – the biggest single recall since Ford took 8m vehicles off the road in 1996. Then in November it called back 2.8m cars, including about 75,000 in the UK, to fix faulty steering columns and water pumps.
During 2009 and 2010, Toyota faced persistent problems that involved the recall of more than 12m Toyota cars and trucks over problems such as faulty accelerator pedals.
The latest recall was announced after the Japanese stock market closed on Wednesday, and takes the shine off this week's announcement that Toyota has overtaken General Motors to regain its status the world's largest car manufacturer, having sold 9.748m vehicles last year.
Toyota is worried faulty circuits on the Corollas could activate airbags and seatbelt restraints unnecessarily.
Lexus IS cars are being recalled over concerns that the windscreen wipers could fail to work in certain conditions such as heavy snow.
Toyota said owners of the vehicles in question would be contacted and get their cars checked by an authorised dealer at no cost.