FRANKFURT - Volkswagen is recalling close to 200,000 units of its Novo Gol and Novo Voyage models built in Brazil for the local market, VW's third-largest, due to insufficient grease in rear wheel bearings in some cases.

The rear wheels could lock if used continuously with insufficiently greased bearings. In extreme cases the wheel could work loose and potentially cause an accident, it said on Thursday.

Vehicles produced after July 2009 are not affected, it said. A relatively common occurrence due to the extreme complexity of most modern automobiles, recalls have grabbed headlines recently after Toyota's image as quality champion was hit by a recall of over 8.5 million vehicles.

On Wednesday, Honda expanded its own recall to almost 950,000 vehicles.

(Reporting by Christiaan Hetzner; Editing by Dan Lalor)

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