Toyota Motors said on Wednesday that it was recalling 2.77 million cars worldwide, this being its second major recall recently.
The recall mainly covers certain Prius models and was prompted by a problem with the steering intermediate extension shafts, which can suffer damage if sharp turns are made at slow speeds. A Toyota spokesman in Tokyo said that the recalled Prius cars were from the model's second generation and certain Corolla models were also affected.
A second problem affected the electric-powered motor pumps in some 630,000 vehicles, the company said. The fault may result in a failure of hybrid systems during operation.
670,000 of the recalled cars were sold in the United States and owners will be notified by mail starting in December. An additional 1.5 million vehicles were being recalled in Japan, along with 496,000 in Europe.
This is the latest embarrassment for Toyota, especially when it announced a recall of 7.43 million cars last month due to a power window problem that posed a fire risk. That recall was the largest issued by car maker in years.