Dealers of Mitsubishi Motors Corp. buses discovered abrasions in the wheel hubs of some buses in 2002 and offered to replace the hubs for free, sources said Thursday.
Yet at that time, MMC went on record as saying the abrasion was unlikely to occur in the hubs of buses.
MMC excluded buses from the inspections and free replacements it conducted mainly on trucks in January 2002 following a fatal accident that month in Yokohama caused by a wheel that detached from a Mitsubishi truck. The accident killed a woman and injured her two sons.
MMC spun off its truck and bus operations into Mitsubishi Fuso Truck & Bus Corp. in January 2003.