I don't know, Toyota has to walk a very fine line. It's all good to calm fears, offer apologies and be responsive to owners and customers but at what point does constantly apologizing or appearing in public become simply raising more doubts?

Jim Lentz has been all over the media, and while his appearances do help get Toyota's message out, the flip side is that they also remind everyone that there is a problem.

I don't know...at some point the public is going to tire of seeing and hearing Jim Lentz. Then his comment and appearance lose impact.

The only questions I have today, might be answered at any moment...and that is exactly what and when does Toyota plan to do something for 2010 Prius owners that don't have the brake software update? Why did Toyota quietly start installing a different software without simultaneously informing owners? Seemingly not being forthcoming about that reality until the NHTSA opened an investigation and Japanese Minister of Transportation started talking about a recall.

TSB has not been issued yet... They applied fix on production line few days ago... There is an reason for delay between finding issue and informing about the issue. It is one part that gets wedged in - fixing the issue. Without fixing the issue, you get fear and panic.

On the other hand, Ford applied the fix 4 months ago, and informed public yesterday. Get my drift? Days aganist months... and 4 months is not bad actually, compared to many others.

If Govt didnt pressure Toyota to issue pedal sticking recall before they found the fix, there would be a lot less fears and confusion.

Maybe fear and confusion was what was intended.

p.s. do not get me wrong. I think govt should have much stricter mandate on forcing manufacturers to do safety recalls than what they do now. Now, manufacturers decide on their own (except in this case), and quite often several years pass between fix on the production line and recall. They need to bring that down to much more reasonable time (enough time to produce parts and effectivly start the recall).

Problem is that they are forcing Toyota and doing nothing about everyone else - as LaHood said yesterday, there are 40 investigations currently at NTHSA and 3 are about Toyotas.... What is happening for 37 others? Are they stopping the sales, are they advising the customers to park those cars? We know from the news reports that 3 of those investigations involve domestic manufacturers, 3 million cars, and safety issues that have been fixed in production between 1 and 5 years ago. So whats happening? Well thats where the issue is.

So it is not so much that they should go easier on Toyota, rather they need to go equally hard on everyone else.

I received this email tonight:

Subject: Toyota Motor Sales President Answers Consumers' Questions

Body:

For more than 50 years, Toyota has produced safe, reliable, quality vehicles and provided first-rate service. Because your safety and confidence in Toyota is of the utmost importance to us, we want to ensure that we are providing you with the latest recall information. To get further details, please visit toyota.com.

Additionally, Jim Lentz, President and COO of Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., will be interviewed live on Digg Dialogg on Monday, February 8, at 2 p.m. PST to answer the top questions as voted on by the Digg community. Watch the interview here.

Your safety is important to us, and we will continue to do everything we can to keep you informed.

The link point you to this: http://digg.com/dialogg/jim_lentz_1

Mitch

I have one question: How soon do you expect to have the mass bulk of Toyotas repaired so we can move on and the general public can BEGIN to start forgetting about this?

+1 on the e-mail from Toyota.com announcing the interview. I wonder how many questions they will take? Will they respond to just the questions they want to answer? Or????