Toyota to open offices to study quality problems

TOYOTA, Japan — Toyota will open six new offices in North America to gather information about vehicle problems as the automaker works to recover from huge recalls that started last year.

Toyota Motor Corp. says it will open four offices in the U.S. and two in Canada over the next 12 months to collect feedback to study vehicle problems and customer complaints.

The Japanese automaker has been trying to improve the safety and quality of its vehicles since recalling more than 8.5 million cars and trucks starting in October. Most of the recalls were related to unintended acceleration, a problem that the U.S. government has tied to dozens of deaths.

This week, Toyota launched a recall of 270,000 of its Lexus luxury vehicles.