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TOKYO, June 14 (Reuters) - Japan's Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corp will recall about 450,000 vehicles in Japan, the company said on Monday, further denting its reputation after it revealed last month that defects had been hidden for eight years.

Mitsubishi Fuso -- in which DaimlerChrysler (XETRA:DCXGn.DE - News) and Mitsubishi Motors (MMC) (Tokyo:7211.T - News) own stakes of 65 percent and 20 percent respectively -- said there were 43 new defect cases that warranted recalls.

An additional four cases would be handled by what it termed improvement campaigns.

"I would first like to apologise to our customers and the general public for the serious wrongdoings of our company in the past," Fuso's German Chief Executive Wilfried Porth said in a company statement.

"We take this issue very seriously and we are committed more than ever to continue our strict path of rigorously cleaning up the past."

The breakdown of the recall was roughly 25,000 heavy duty vehicles, roughly 120,000 medium duty vehicles and roughly 300,000 light duty vehicles. Around 5,000 to 8,000 buses were also expected to be affected.

Last month, Fuso issued a recall of about 170,000 trucks and buses. Porth has said sales would probably suffer heavily given the loss of customer trust.

The scandals come at a bad time for MMC, Japan's only loss-making auto maker, which is struggling to rebuild itself for the second time since 2000. The nation's fourth-biggest automaker last month unveiled a $4 billion emergency rescue package.

Adding insult to injury, DaimlerChrysler, which owns 37 percent of MMC, said last week it might demand compensation from its partner from the fall-out at Fuso.

The suit, if it goes ahead, could also deepen the financial woes of cash-strapped MMC, which faces an uphill path to regain public trust after DaimlerChrysler suddenly pulled the plug on the financial aid package in April.

DaimlerChrysler paid 52 billion yen ($471.5 million) this spring for a bigger stake in Fuso, once Mitsubishi Motors' crown jewel, on top of $768 million it had spent initially for a 43 percent stake.

But Fuso, which Mitsubishi Motors spun off in January 2003, has been dogged by bad publicity this year after revelations that it had been hiding dangerous defects from the authorities.

In what came as an added blow to MMC, Japanese police last week arrested former MMC president Katsuhiko Kawasoe and five others on suspicion of professional negligence that led to the death of a truck driver two years ago.

Japanese media reported over the weekend that scandal-hit Mitsubishi would have to lower its domestic sales target for this year ending next March by 27 percent to 220,000 units. In May, MMC registered a steep 56 percent dive in new vehicle sales.

The latest recall announcement came after the Tokyo stock market closed. Shares in Mitsubishi Motors ended down four percent at 192 yen, compared with a 0.31 percent fall in the benchmark Nikkei average (^N225 - News).

DaimlerChrysler shares were down 1.5 percent at 37.65 euros at 1135 GMT.

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