WASHINGTON – Federal regulators have expanded their investigation of Ford Windstar minivans to a second component after complaints from “salt belt” states of a loss of vehicle control stemming from corrosion, Automotive News reported.

The new investigation covers 1999-2003 model year Windstars.

The expanded probe by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is focusing on front subframe corrosion on the right side that has led to 87 complaints and three crashes, the agency said Tuesday. The latest investigation was opened July 20.

The government’s preliminary evaluation will encompass as many as 900,000 vehicles.

“My wife was driving at a slow speed in a parking lot, and all of a sudden there was a loud bang and she could not steer the vehicle,” one complainant wrote to NHTSA about his 2000 Windstar LX van. “One wheel in the front was straight, and the other front wheel was turned at a 45-degree angle.”

A Ford spokeswoman said the company is cooperating with the investigation, which is the first in a series of steps that can result in a recall. Repairs in a recall are paid for by the manufacturer.

In May, NHTSA said it had opened an investigation of the same pool of Ford Windstars after 234 complaints of rear axles fracturing.

Most of the axle complaints stemmed from “salt belt” states, probably because the rear axle beam collects road salt slurry and corrodes until it breaks, NHTSA said at the time.

The agency said it is conducting two investigations, one of the front subframe corrosion and the other of the rear axles.

Ford built 2.3 million Windstars from 1994 to 2003 before the model was discontinued.

The vehicles have been subject to 10 recalls involving 3.6 million vehicles, according to NHTSA records. Some Windstars were recalled more than once.

The biggest recall — of 1.7 million 1995-2003 model Windstars — was part of a larger 2009 recall of 4.5 million vehicles with faulty cruise control deactivation switches that posed potential fire hazards.

“These are older vehicles – between 16 and 8 years old – and they have faced a number of recalls,” Ford spokesperson Jennifer Moore said. “When we identify an issue with a vehicle, we do the responsible thing, issue the recall and fix the concern.”

TOKYO – Toyota Motor Corp. said it has been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in New York to submit documents related to problems with rods that connect a vehicle’s steering system to its front wheels, reported The Associated Press.

The world’s largest automaker, which is trying to repair a reputation damaged by recalls of millions of cars worldwide since October, said the federal grand jury issued the subpoena to its U.S. subsidiary in late June.

Toyota said it was the company’s second subpoena from a federal grand jury — a panel that can determine whether evidence exists to bring criminal charges.

“The company and its subsidiary are sincerely cooperating with authorities on the probe,” Toyota said in a statement.

Defective steering relay rods led Toyota to recall 4Runner sports utility vehicles and T100 pickup trucks in the United States in 2005.

Toyota said the grand jury’s subpoena did not specify vehicle models and it was not clear that the subpoena was linked to the 2005 recall, which came several years before safety lapses erupted into a global recall crisis late last year.

The automaker has recalled more than 8.5 million vehicles worldwide since October, including 6 million in the U.S. alone, to address the possibility of unintended acceleration and to fix a braking problem in its Prius hybrid.

In February, Toyota was subpoenaed by a U.S. federal grand jury seeking documents related to unintended acceleration in its vehicles and the braking system of its Prius hybrid.

Earlier this year, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox also asked Toyota to submit information on the recent U.S. recalls, Toyota spokeswoman Ririko Takeuchi said. She declined to elaborate.

Toyota paid a record $16.4 million fine for being slow to recall vehicles with an accelerator pedal problem and is facing hundreds of state and federal lawsuits. Congress is considering an upgrade to auto safety laws in the aftermath of the Toyota recalls that began in October.

In Tokyo, Toyota shares fell 2.6 percent Tuesday to close at 3,055 yen before the subpoena announcement was made.

As it investigates a suspected kickback scheme in New York’s pension system, the Securities and Exchange Commission has been pushing to bar Steven L. Rattner, a prominent financier and former adviser to the Obama administration on the auto industry, from working in the securities industry for up to three years, according to three people told of the discussions, The New York Times reported.

But Rattner has fiercely resisted the proposed penalty, setting up a face-off with the federal government, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the negotiations are intended to be confidential.

It would be the most severe penalty for any of the Wall Street executives ensnared in the wide-ranging pension investigation, and it would carry a significant stigma for Rattner, whose rise in high finance catapulted him to the top of New York’s social and political hierarchy.

The S.E.C. and the New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, have suggested that Rattner improperly paid off a political operative to win lucrative business from the New York state pension fund — in one case, by arranging to help distribute a low-budget film for the brother of a pension fund official.

Rattner’s former firm, the Quadrangle Group, paid million in fines to settle with state and federal officials in April, but Rattner was left out of that agreement because he would not accept the S.E.C.’s proposal that he be barred from working on Wall Street, people briefed on the case said.

Now, the S.E.C. must decide whether to pursue separate civil charges against Rattner or drop the case altogether.

The attorney’s general’s office is not involved in the S.E.C. talks: Rattner was granted immunity from criminal action by Cuomo’s office in return for his testimony before a grand jury, said a person briefed on the matter. That deal has complicated Cuomo’s case against Rattner.

But Rattner’s immunity hinges on whether his testimony was accurate. And he could still face civil penalties from the attorney general.

Spokesmen for the attorney general’s office and the S.E.C. declined to comment. A spokesman for Rattner also declined to comment.

The U.S. Justice Department has dropped a probe of American International Group Inc. executives involving the credit default swaps that sent the insurer to the brink of bankruptcy and forced a huge taxpayer bailout, lawyers for the executives said on Saturday.

The investigation had centered on AIG Financial Products, which nearly brought down the giant insurer after writing tens of billions of dollars on insurance-like contracts on complex securities backed by mortgages that turned out to be toxic, Reuters reported.

The U.S. government stepped in with a $182 billion bailout to avert a bankruptcy filing by AIG.

The criminal probe had focused on whether Joseph Cassano, who ran the financial products unit, and Andrew Forster, his deputy, knowingly misled investors about the company’s accounting losses on its credit default swaps portfolio.

“Although a 2-year, intense investigation is tough for anyone, the results are wholly appropriate in light of our client’s factual innocence,” F. Joseph Warin and Jim Walden, Cassano’s lawyers, said in a statement.

Forster’s lawyers also confirmed the probe had been dropped.

The Department of Justice declined to comment.

AIG said in a statement it welcomed the decision.