What’s going on with Toyota?
Oh what a feeling?
By now, you’ve heard of the various recalls by Toyota attempting to fix “sticky” gas pedals which have led to numerous cases of sudden acceleration. Toyota’s story has changed over the months, so here’s a quick recap so you can inform your friend with the RAV41 why she needs to bring her car to the dealer.
After some accidents resulting from sudden acceleration, Toyota determined that the floor mats were to blame, causing the gas pedal to get “trapped” in the floor mat and continue accelerating. As a result, the company recalled 3.8 millions vehicles in September 2009 to fix/replace floor mats.2 As expected, it wasn’t just the floor mats causing the problems.
Back in 2007, Toyota knew of accelerator problems with its 2006 Tundra which include some new technology in its gas pedals which used sensors rather than a physical connection to the engine. Toyota has since made some changes to correct the problem, but the error has obviously not been corrected, as the latest recall to fix the gas pedals is being blamed on “excess friction” and the current fix is to add a part (shim) to the pedal.
Will this last recall solve the entire problem? Probably not. Why? Complaints are still coming in from Toyota owners with acceleration problems on vehicles not linked to either recall.
To make matters worse, complaints are now flowing in about brake problems on the 2010 Prius. Stay tuned, because a major company’s reputation is at stake.
Read on:
WSJ.com – U.S. Transportation Secretary Seeks Meeting With Toyota CEO
- other vehicles affected by the recall are certain models of Corolla, Matrix, Avalon, Camry, Highlander, Tundra, and Sequoia ↩
- http://www.usrecallnews.com/2009/09/toyota-recalls-3-8-million-vehicles-gas-pedals-sticking.html ↩
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