Japan's carmakers are struggling to keep up in Britain's improving car market as Toyota, Nissan and Honda's decision to recall millions of vehicles put off buyers.

UK car registrations leapt 26.4% year-on-year to 68,586 units in February, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers (SMMT), the eighth monthly increase in a row.

Toyota's brake and accelerator problems appear to be steering drivers towards rivals. Sales were 15% higher last month than at the same time last year, but market share fell to 5% from 5.5% in 2009.

So far this year it has sold 10,785 vehicles in Britain, 5% less than in did in the first few months of 2009, cutting its share of the market to 5% from 6.8%.

The company has recalled nearly 9m cars to mend "sticky" accelerator pedals linked to the deaths of over 30 people in America. Almost 190,000 of these are in the UK.

Further trouble could be in store as reports emerge that the accelerator pedal fix being carried out at Toyota dealerships may not work. Several complaints have already been received.

Sales of Hondas tumbled 25% to 1,663 in February and by 13% for the year-to-date, bringing its market share down to 2.4% from over 4%, while Nissan's share fell to 3% from 3.7% as sales rose just 3.5% last month and by 20% for the year.

Nissan is recalling almost 540,000 cars it fears may suffer from problems with their brake mechanisms and fuel gauges that give the wrong reading. It recalled over 76,000 cars in Japan last week

Last month, Honda said it will be telling almost 440,000 drivers to take their cars back to the dealer as they may have faulty airbags. Metal fragments can pass through the airbag if the inflator mechanism deploys with too much pressure.

Today's numbers from the SMMT show growth in the UK market is slowing, having come in shy of January's 29.8% year-on-year gain, 38.9% in December and 57.6% the month before.

But Skoda (77%), Peugeot (71%), Fiat (58%), Mercedes-Benz (47%), BMW (35%), Volkswagen (30%) and Citroen (28%) all did better than the UK average.

Car sales have no doubt affected by the increase in VAT to 17.5% from 15%, but that was easily offset by benefits from the ongoing car scrappage scheme, which the SMMT says accounted for 19.6% of sales in February.

"With the car scrappage scheme coming to an end in March and with VAT having risen back up from 15.0% to 17.5% at the beginning of January, there is a very real danger that car sales will fall back markedly after the first quarter," says Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight.

Related share prices