PRIVATE hire company Addison Lee has been told it cannot buy 50 Avensis models because Toyota does not want to do business with the firm. The decision was taken because London-based Addison Lee has made a claim against Toyota for £71,000 for costs it claims were incurred as a result of brake problems on the company's existing fleet of 50 Carina E CD 1.8-litre automatics.

Toyota believes it would be wrong to enter into a new business arrangement with Addison Lee until the claim is resolved - leaving Addison Lee chairman John Griffin withholding a cheque for around £600,000 and a dealer unwilling to accept it. Griffin said: 'The 50 Carinas were excellent cars, but had an unfortunate fault with the discs. Toyota repaired all the discs for each of the vehicles, but that meant the cars had to be presented to Toyota more often than usual. We therefore sent an invoice for costs of about £1,400 per vehicle as a result of downtime and other expenses.

'We then went back to our Toyota dealer and ordered an additional 50 diesel Avensis models. 'That is presently held up because Toyota will not go ahead with it while the claim issue is going on.'

A Toyota spokesman said Avensis was in such high demand that Toyota was in the luxurious position of not needing to chase business.