Aston Martin, the British luxury sports car maker has just recalled 0ver 17,000 cars due to safety issues with the gas pedal for models released since 2008. Affected by the recall are about 7,271 cars in Europe and 5,001 cars in the United States. What this means is that the Rapide and Rapide S, V-12 Vantage Coupe, and coupe and convertible versions of the DB9, DBS, Virage, V-8 Vantage and Vantage S will be heading to the dealers for a free repair.

According to reuters.com:

Feb 5 (Reuters) – Aston Martin expanded a recall on Wednesday to cover most of its sports cars built since late 2007 after discovering a Chinese sub-supplier was using counterfeit plastic material in a part supplied to the British luxury sports carmaker.

Owned by Kuwaiti and private equity investors, Aston Martin said it would now recall 17,590 cars, including all of its left-hand drive models built since November 2007 and all right-hand drive models built since May 2012.

A spokesperson for Aston Martin said this recall affects about 75% of all vehicles built during that time, except fro the Vanquish model. As it turns out, Aston Martin is a victim of counterfeit plastic material from China. According to documents filed with the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Shenzhen Kexiang Mould Tool Co Limited, a Chinese subcontractor, was using counterfeit DuPont plastic material for the  affected accelerator pedal arms.

According to Sarah Calam, spokeswoman for Aston Martin, there has been a report of 22 failed parts and there has not be a report of accident or injury due to the issue. Although the cost of recall will already be great, Aston Martin is taking further proactive steps such as changing to a direct DuPont distributor and deploying people to China to supervise production and verification of DuPont materials. The luxury automaker is also considering shifting production of pedal arms from China to the United Kingdom this 2014.

Photo credits: 2secondclub.blogspot.com and astonmartin.com