Subaru Investigates Possible Mileage Data Cheating

Japan's manufacturing industry has been rocked by a number of scandals through the past year. It has ranged from inflating fuel economy figures, fabrication of product data, and recently, improper inspections of Japanese market vehicles by Nissan and Subaru. Now a new scandal has come to light.

Subaru has revealed that it is investigating whether or not mileage readings on their vehicles were falsified during final inspection. According to Reuters, the mileage readings are used as an indicator for fuel efficiency. The company is checking to see if this data affected its official mileage readings and whether exported models are involved.

"At the moment we are trying to confirm whether data was indeed fabricated, and if so, how this happened and which models are affected," said Subaru spokeswoman Miyuki Yasuda.

This revelation stems from a current investigation being done by external investigators into final inspections being done by uncertified workers for JDM vehicles. Some inspectors told the investigators "that mileage data had been altered on some sample vehicle models tested during final checks."

“Coming on the heels of the certified inspection issue, this could be a sign of a bigger problem of how Subaru manages its manufacturing operations,” said Janet Lewis, head of Asia transportation research at Macquarie Securities.

Subaru's stock price fell as much as 8.5 percent during trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange when this news came to light.

Source: Reuters, NHK World