The car in front was a Toyota... now can it find road to recovery?

Held up as a model that many of its motor industry rivals aspire to, Toyota is not only a trusted brand but its cars are hugely popular. The Prius, for instance, was Japan's top-selling car last year and the world's most popular hybrid.

But the company's announcement that it is recalling more than 400,000 vehicles worldwide, including around 8,500 Toyota Priuses in the UK, because of a braking problem, has brought such assumptions into question.

The UK recall involves the third generation of the hybrid electric-petrol Prius and affects models manufactured from last summer up to January 27 this year. Toyota said the problem related to what it described as "inconsistent brake feel" during slow and steady braking on bumpy road surfaces when the anti-lock braking system is activated, although the beleaguered manufacturer stressed there have been no accidents linked to this issue in Europe.

Toyota GB apologised to customers yesterday and said the software on the anti-lock braking system would be upgraded on recalled vehicles, free of charge.

The company will write to car owners in the next few days but reassured people that the vehicles were still roadworthy. "The cars are safe to drive. At no time are drivers without brakes. Toyota GB guarantees to every customer its utmost attention to making this upgrade as quickly and efficiently as possible."

But, despite such guarantees, the news is a dent to the company's image, and the announcement about the environmentally-friendly Prius follows the recall of around seven million Toyotas worldwide – including about 180,000 in the UK – over problems with accelerator pedals.

Reputations, of course, can take years to build up but it only takes a minute to destroy them. Speaking to the BBC, Peter De Lorenzo, author of the book The United States of Toyota, said that the latest recall was a big blow to the company. "The Prius is their shining example of their vision of what we should all be driving and it is everything the new Toyota represents. So for them to have to acknowledge a recall of hundreds of thousands of them is a tremendous blow to their image," he said.

Toyota's problems have even spilled into the political arena, with Japan's transport minister Seiji Maehara publically criticising the Toyota Motors president Akio Toyoda for responding too late to the concerns over the brakes on the Prius models. It seems some politicians like Mr Maehara are worried that Toyota's tarnished image could have a knock-on effect and damage the reputation of Japanese products abroad, and could lead some consumers to start questioning Japanese firms' supposed superior quality.

However, many motor industry experts in the UK believe it's a bit of a storm in a tea cup. Alistair Jeff, sales director of Carsite.co.uk, says it's not uncommon for car manufacturers to recall vehicles where there may be a problem.

"The likelihood of there being a problem is minimal because the cars will have gone through many checks already. The problem with a company the size of Toyota is that once you get one issue people then jump on anything that comes up afterwards," he says. "Is it damaging to Toyota's reputation? Yes it is in the short term, but I would stand back and say that while the value of their used cars will take a bit of a hit, that will blow over and people will realise that Toyota is a good company that makes excellent, reliable cars."

Ashley Winston, founder and owner of car-finding firm Palmdale Motors Ltd, also thinks Toyota will ride out the storm. "We are dealing with a company that has a fantastic reputation for build quality and even though the company has had a bad press, it's only to do with this one issue and, to be fair to Toyota, they've been very up front about it, they've found a problem and said 'let's deal with it'."

He added: "It only affects a small percentage of cars and it's not going to have as big an impact as some people may think because the Toyota reputation is so strong. A month, or two, down the road it will be old news and people will have forgotten about it."