TOKYO — Three Japanese automakers that have been investigating the safety of aluminum purchased from Kobe Steel, the supplier caught up in a scandal over fabricated quality data, said on Thursday that they did not believe the material posed a danger to vehicles or their occupants.

Toyota Motor, Honda Motor and Mazda Motor said the findings were preliminary, but they nonetheless went some way toward resolving a crucial question: Did Kobe Steel make products that fell short of the standards its customers demanded and paid for, but were nonetheless safe? Or were those products more seriously, and hazardously, flawed?

Answering that question is especially important because Kobe Steel supplies metal to industries where safety is vital, including car, train and aircraft producers.

The carmakers’ findings on Thursday appeared to point to the former, more benign conclusion. While the metal may not have been as strong as advertised, it still met their own safety standards as well as regulators’, the automakers said.