SHANGHAI: General Motors Co’s China joint venture will recall close to 1.5 million vehicles due to potential safety issues in one of the biggest recalls in the world’s biggest autos market.

Shanghai General Motors Co Ltd, GM’s venture with SAIC Motor Corp, will recall about 1.46m Buick and Chevrolet models produced locally due to issues with a bracket that secures the fuel pump, the country’s quality watchdog said on Friday.

Some of the recalled vehicles include the Chevy Sail which is exported to emerging markets, a Shanghai-based GM official said.

Separately, the watchdog said Ford Motor Co’s joint venture with Chongqing Changan Automobile Co Ltd will recall close to 81,000 of its Kuga cars over a steering part.

Yale Zhang, head of Shanghai-based consulting firm Automotive Foresight, said the GM recall was big in number because both the affected models - the Buick Excelle and the Chevrolet Sail - are high-volume, mainstream cars, but the cause of the recall didn’t appear too serious.

“GM has warned that the affected component might crack after long use and lead to fuel leakage, but in real life it doesn’t appear to have happened,” Zhang said. “There’re so many recalls these days, and some automakers call back products proactively more as a precaution. In this case, the recall shouldn’t affect GM’s reputation in China that much.”

US carmakers in China have generally outpaced growth in the overall market, boosted by their popular product line-ups and partly as Japanese rivals were hit last year by anti-Japan protests following a territorial dispute between Beijing and Tokyo.—Reuters