Toyota Suspends Sales of Eight Models - NOT Prius

I stand corrected about my belief that all Toyota hybrids are currently made in Japan. Another post has noted that CTS-supplied pedal assemblies from Statesville, Ontario are the source of the problem, but that Denso assemblies are OK. So they're sorting out which North America-made cars, among the models involved, actually need pedal assembly replacement. So Camry hybrids might (or not) be clear of the problem.

In any case, if your VIN begins with "J", all is well with respect to this issue.

 

Per Toyota Vehicles : Toyota Recall January 2010: Voluntary Safety Gas Pedal Recall / Toyota :

 

To further clarify my response, if you look at all the links at the bottom of Toyota Vehicles : Toyota Recall January 2010: Voluntary Safety Gas Pedal Recall / Toyota, no Corolla is included in the floor mat "recall". I also didn't find any recall relating to floor mats when I looked up the 09 Corolla on safercar.gov. But yes, the 04-09 Prius is included in the floor mat "recall".

 

In my opinion the first recall about the mats is bogus.

The NHTSA due to the Explorer fiasco has to be agressive in 'forcing' automakers to resolve potential risks. The potential risk concerning the mats is one that someone will not follow instructions and will use multiple mats and not secure those mats properly.

If one uses only the correct mats and secures them properly on the anchors then there's no way for the pedal to become trapped.

But some simply won't follow instructions ( such as the SD Lexus dealer ) so double and triple layers of error avoidance seem to be required. For those of us who have a shred of common sense and do follow instructions we can see that there is no risk of the mats interfering with the pedal. It's a bogus issue in my case and no one is touching my mats or reshaping my gas pedal.

 

When I was last there about two years ago, Georgetown made:

• Camry hybrid
• Solara
• Venza
• Camry(*)
• Avalon(*)

(*) announced in sales halt

We can add to that list the sales critter who received our 2010 Prius and missed that the floor mat was unsecured. I drove back two days later to get the floor mat hooks and installed them myself. A couple of weeks later, he was gone but the last time I saw him, he'd also given me a 'business card' that made him a sales manager . . . kinda of a strange fellow . . . it happens. I never complained but fully understood his absence.

Bob Wilson

 

The floor mat recall was a red herring. I dont care how much the floor mat is on a gas pedal, unless it totally binds up the pedal, which is a design flaw, taking your foot off the brake, even momentarily will drop the accelerator. I have had it happen in the past a few times from the mat slipping, and this was before they put hooks in to keep them in place. I have also driven the Camry with a rubber mat on top of the carpeted one with no problems, even though it slid around, it never interfered with the gas pedal.

I have had the Camry surge while coming to a stop, it happened to me and my wife. All this time she thought I was goofing around slamming on the brake when coming to a stop, until it happened to her. I always said, Toyota has a problem with their accelerators, and now here's the proof that there is.

I am so glad I got rid of it for a Ford. Between the crappy over sensitive Traction Control and poor cross wind handling of the Prius, and the poor handling and poor quality of the material in the Camry, I am sorely disappointed in Toyota.

 

Seems not that long ago, Toyota issued an apology for how their quality had slipped in their rush to be the largest carmaker out there.

Toyota quality on the new models is at a standstill, if not actually slipping. The initial build quality of my truck-like FJ Cruiser was far better than my Prius, although FJ's also have a series of problems that - fortunately - have not affected me yet

A lot of the hype behind Toyota, which proved true for a long time, was the edge in quality and durability. That may no longer be true, why pay a premium for a phantom and perceived quality that may not be there?

Just as there are GM fanboys that hotly defend their products, and Ford fanboys that hotly defend their products, there are also Toyota fanboys that hotly defend whatever Toyota does. I'm no longer one of those fanboys

So far my FJ has held up very well, but I've never been truly offroad. Apparently, if you do push the FJ to its advertised limits - eg water fording - you can expect to replace all the sealed wheel bearings (Very expensive), and the starter will also give you grief. But driven on roads like mine is, no problems

This issue with the gas pedal I find quite interesting. Apparently, Toyota no longer does product testing and subassembly testing. They had to find a way to cut corners to improve their bottom line, well, they found a way.

If I am ever in the market for a second vehicle, eg a car, it will probably not be a Toyota

 

No other issue. There has been a lot of misinformation tossed about, but the Prius has not been subject to runaway car issues, other than driver error or floor mat problems. Even the floor mat problems, as far as I know, are only related to using large, all weather mats, or improperly securing the factory mats. Properly hooked, there is no way for the factory mat to interfere.

Tom

 

This is very embarrassing for Toyota, but I will still only buy Toyotas.

 

I've had mixed success with many auto manufactures:

My 1972 Jeep CJ-5 was a POS. I loved it dearly, and it would take me almost anywhere, but it lacked terribly in design and quality. It came from the factory missing the entire emergency flasher wiring harness. Likewise, it had rust on it when it came off the factory truck. On the plus side, you could fix anything on it with a wrench and a screwdriver.

Our early Honda Accord rusted badly. To their credit, Honda stood behind it and replaced the rusted parts.

My next Honda, a CRX, had no rust issues at all. Honda had fixed that problem. The CRX did suffer from some minor issues: fasteners vibrated loose, the gas door release cable would freeze, brake retaining clips would fall off. It was a good car, but not perfect.

We had a Subaru that was nice and especially good in the winter. Unfortunately it was one of their early turbo models, and it would blow out seals. It was a fact of ownership: you either paid big bucks on a regular basis to replace the seals, or you lived with slow oil leaks. We called it "the crop duster" because it slowly dripped oil onto the exhaust manifold, leaving a blue cloud of smoke behind us.

Despite the bad reputation of Detroit, I recently sold our 1994 Ford Aerostar van. This was an Eddie Bauer model with a digital dash, fancy stereo, and electronic 4wd. We put a couple of hundred thousand miles on that van and never had a bit of trouble. Even the seats were amazing: they still looked like new when I sold it.

My point is that even good manufactures stumble from time to time, and poor manufactures can get lucky. You have to look at long term trends, and also watch how a manufacturer deals with problems. Toyota is going through a rough spot. How they deal with this will tell a lot.

Tom

 

I fail to understand the "fanboys" who support only one manufacturer, regardless of anything else. Many folks around here are stuck on one brand and continued to buy their brand even when they made a lot of junk over the years. Some of my family was stunned when I bought a 2010 Prius because I previously had 2 Hondas that I was very happy with and I sounded like a Honda salesman. I simply looked around when my CRX died and I wanted MPG at least as good as the CRX was and I had to have >= 4 seats. I believe Toyota is ahead of Honda in the hybrid game so I bought a Toyota Prius. When we bought our Odyssey, we look at all the minivans, including those from Detroit. I was never stuck on Honda, nor will I ever be committed to one manufacturer for life.

 

The Toyota accelerator problem is "stunning" to say the least in the automotive world. How a manufacturer could fall so far so fast is crazy. I am not sure they really know what the problem is yet. Unbelivable. The Toyota dealers I know are scared to death, especially if they built a new store in the last five years. There is a "cover-up" here that will be comparable to watergate. Sell your toyota stock.

 

Or, it may involve a fix so horrendously expensive that they may chose the Ford route with the Pinto: it would be cheaper to pay lawsuits than fix the problem, cost vs benefit

With domestics, I usually know what to expect. I had a 2000 GMC Sierra SLT that promised a lot. Actually had many thoughtful features that I appreciated, especially the seats which were light years better than Toyota

But the reliability really sucked. Where I now live, a neighbor is a construction foreman for a commercial builder. He always leases 3 years, its a write-off, and has always leased Chevy or GMC

He claims their pickups from the 1990's were ok, no real issues that he had. Then he leased a 2000 Silvorado, and had similar issues to my Sierra: problems with the Autotrac mode select cluster (Replaced several times under warranty), Vortec 5.3 that burned oil and went knock knock knock knock like an old Cornbinder diesel, rear axle seal leaks (But NOT a leaky pinion seal like mine as delivered)

His 2003 Silvorado was much better, had an issue with the HVAC blower working only on high speed, or not at all. Replaced the HVAC control under warranty, it was fine

The 2006 Silvorado for some reason kept cracking windshields. He swore he never had any rock impacts on the highway, but the windshield would crack like crazy. Replaced a couple of times, then he said to hell with it until his lease was up, replaced it one last time.

Reminds me of the windshield issue on the FJ Cruiser. At least mine has not had any cracks yet (I probably just cursed myself for saying that, didn't I? I'll probably get the Fender Bulge thing next)

His 2009 Silvorado LTZ he absolutely loves. It has navigation and bluetooth, works just fine with his Blackberry. When we go out for coffee, I always ride along with him to have the comfort of nicely shaped leather bucket seats. No problems with his 2009, and he works it quite hard

How Toyota responds to these potentially serious issues remains to be seen. I find it suspicious that something as basic as an electric pedal assembly (Virtually every new vehicle now uses this technology) could have failed so catastrophically. This is something that would have been easily picked up in advanced testing

When an electric gas pedal fails, usually the motor just returns to idle and stays there. Some Detroit Diesel 60 series DDEC controls had this issue in the late 1990's: the typical linehaul truck cab environment caused corrosion of the hall effect sensors, and as a result - usually somewhere in BFE - the DDEC would keep the engine at idle speed and strand the driver

Toyota tried at all costs to be the largest carmaker in the world. That cost may have been too high

 

I'll get right on that..

 

These are things to remember:

1) This is VOLUNTARY RECALL and stop sale. Toyota did this without being ordered by the NHTSA.

2) Toyota VOLUNTARILY issued the stop sale.

Toyotas like every other car is made by human beings and as such are not perfect and problems do and will happen. How the problem is handled shows what kind of company Toyota is. Unlike most auto makers Toyota did NOT wait for a government order.

The part in question is made CTS and they supply accelerator pedals to several major auto makers.

 

With so many parts being made outside of manufacturers' controls, I am surprised that more things are not going wrong. I don't know if Toyota is slipping, but their Tundra V8 issues and now this are hard to ignore.

The floor mat excuse for the Gen II Prius seems more rediculous than the recall in my eyes.

Still waiting to hear updates on the few but existing Prius runaway stories.

At least it seems that they are taking the right steps now. Itakes them all these years to build an empire based on reliability and reputation only to have it tarnished just like that...

 

BS
U.S.: Toyota had to stop troubled production | freep.com | Detroit Free Press

 

David Strickland, the new chief of the National Highway Safety Administration, said Toyota had consulted with regulators before making its move Tuesday.

"Toyota's decision was an aggressive one, and one that was the legally and morally correct thing to do," Strickland said.


The story clearly said that the move was VOLUNTARY by Toyota and as such Toyota was legally required to STOP production of the vehicles involved.

As the story said Mr. Strickland stated it was Toyota's decision. Not NHTSA's decision for the sales hold and stop production.

 

Again toyota trying to get credit for stopping the sales of cars that they legally were forbid to produce. Go ahead take the credit. When the whole story is out in the open it will be interesting to see what the feeling is then. Toyota has been running form this for months. A notice to remove the floor mats? Come on.

 

It would have been ridiculous to continue to sell new vehicles with the same gas pedal problem as the recalled vehicles. And immoral.

Perhaps it is time to take another look at Hyundai.