Gov't urges Toyota to reassure consumers; U.S. Congress to hold hearing

Toyota is today using same parts for several different models but it was using different parts for each model years ago in order to prevent some kinds of parts defection or unexpected trouble of each model. To make car's price down, Toyota has to be using many parts made in other countries. Toyota seems that it can't easily inspect millions of parts strictly and vigorously.

According to the NHTSA, problems of sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles have led to 19 deaths in the past decade.

If this is like it sounds, a proven fact, then Toyota has to face charges of negligence resulting in multiple deaths.

In taking a leaf out of the Japanese government playbook when confronted with products of a foreign origin that represent a danger to consumers, I would hope that the United States Government (and others) would call upon consumers to actively avoid the purchase of these obviously unsafe products. Furthermore, I would hope that international media outlets would follow the knee-jerk populist actions encountered among Japan's domestic media in whipping up a frenzy of mass hysteria regarding this topic.

read earlier that the actual gas pedals are made...where else...china

It is a big deal. Not so much that 19 people died over the last 10 years (whoop-di-doo, big picture wise) but that the mighty and infallible Toyota corporation has been proven to be mortal.

At the start of this article we get-

"The auto giant also said it would recall vehicles in Europe due to the accelerator problem, but said the number of recalled vehicles has yet to be determined."

At the end of the article we get-

"The recall has spread outside the North American region with Toyota on Thursday filing a recall of around 750,000 units of the RAV4 sport utility vehicle in China. It is also considering a recall of about 2 million vehicles in Europe."

This is the kind of double speak we are getting from Toyota executives. On one hand they don't know, but when pressed for more info- they suddenly know. Toyota is literally blowing up before our very eyes.

Accelerator problems with pedals being stuck are one issue, the other is unintended acceleration from their electronic engine management system - which they are trying to hide or disguise, and which is probably the more serious issue.

People have written of Toyota calling in cars for minor servicing, then find out that all their electric settings have been re-set after a secretive system upgrade.

Reading about this recall, now I understand better about an incident I had last year in September when I went for a trip from Japan to Germany. There I had a Rent-a-car Toyota Avensis Station Wagon for one week. When the engine was started in cold condition, it went up to 2000 rpm. A little bit high for an engine with electronic control. When the engine was warm, idling at at 700-800 rpm was normal.

When driving in a small village together with my wife and 3 kids and approaching a traffic light going yellow, I started to break slightly and prepared to push the clutch to change to a lower gear (Manual shift car). I was very surprised that the engine went up to more than 4000 rpm, when I was quite sure that my foot was on the brake and not on the accelerator pedal. Anyhow, breaking harder, then a short touch on the accelerator pedal, and the engine was at idling speed. As I was alert and we had some distance to the car in front of us (safety margin) no accident happened. My wife wondered, what had happened. At first she thought I might have touched both accelerator and breaking pedal for a short moment. At this time I could not explain. Now, when reading this article, I got a clue what really happened. A little scary.

Keep going with the witchhunt USA! Soon people might be backing to buying your crappy cars!

"Keep going with the witchhunt USA! Soon people might be backing to buying your crappy cars!".

You might be right, but these Toyotas sound worse. I think the Americans are secretly a little schadenfreude (hope I spelt that correctly) at the moment.

I'm an American and I don't experience schadenfreude at the thought of people dying because of a foreign car manufacturer's product defect. Remember, many of those defective cars were assembled in America and 6 American car plants will be idled on Monday until this is resolved. So while the company affected is foreign, the impact on Americans will go far beyond just the Toyota owners and car dealers. I'm sure similar impacts will be felt in Europe and China.

And tmarie, isn't it hard to call it a "witchhunt" when the manufacturer is the one performing the recalls/sales halts?

This is a panic on a scale much bigger then Audi's "unintended accelleration" mess in the 80's. That almost killed Audi in North America and it took them years to recover. I would put this on a par with or maybe worse than the Ford Explorer rollovers of the 90's. Not only will Toyota spend billions on the recalls but they will likely face lawsuits as well. Toyota will survive but if I were holding stock I'd dump it. Toyota will be paying for this for the next 2-5 years.

stirfry: the gas pedals in the US were made in the US but that doesn't matter. The flaw is in the design of the part and that is dictated to suppliers by Toyota. This is not a problem that can be blamed on the suppliers, Chinese, Japanese, or American.

tmarie: People are buying Ford products and they're beating mighty Toyota's products in comparison tests. Toyota has grown complacent and arrogant they need to get back to what made them successful in the first place.

usaexpat;

"Not only will Toyota spend billions on the recalls but they will likely face lawsuits as well. Toyota will survive but if I were holding stock I'd dump it. Toyota will be paying for this for the next 2-5 years."

I agree to a point. If you take the Mitsubishi Motors fiasco as an example then there is a chance that Toyota could recover domestically. The difference here though is that this is happening in the US- where consumers are not as willing to forgive- especially if it appears the company in question has sacrificed consumer safety for profits or there is evidence of a wide scale cover-up. Unfortunately I am sensing that both things occured here with Toyota. If I look into my crystal ball I imagine Toyota will pay the huge fines, sack their management teams and design technicians in Japan. They will make a great public display of this and hope the US government and consumers will back off. The lawsuits will ensue with probably record setting damages being awarded- I mean we have 19 deaths and hundreds of injuries in question. Can Toyota survive all this ? I really don't know.

Toyota is doing the right thing. Toyota says it will begin telling millions of customers how it will repair their sticky gas pedal systems next week, and repairs will be finished in less than a month. Ford has same problem with full size vehicle build by Chinese with acceleratiors built by the same parts supplier as Toyota.

Transportation Secretary Hood said he had "no criticism of Toyota on this. They followed the law and they're doing what they're suppose to do.

Comparison to Toyota Executives versus GM Executives, The side saddle fuel tank design installed in over 10 million trucks, all 1973-91 GM's full-size pickups and cab-chassis trucks is the worst auto crash fire defect in the history of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Based on data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, over 1,800 Americans were killed in fire crashes involving these trucks from 1973 through 2000. This is more than twenty times as many fatalities as in the infamous Ford Pinto. Despite a voluntary recall request from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in April 1993 and an initial defect determination by Transportation Secretary Pena in October 1994, GM executives stubbornly refused to initiate a recall. If GM made a recall earlier, this would've saved many lives.

tmarie wrote:

Keep going with the witchhunt USA! Soon people might be backing to buying your crappy cars!

Some connected with Ford and Government Motors might be privately cheering on Toyota's troubles, but I bet the many Americans who have jobs due to Toyota's success are very worried about what a long safety scandal will do to their job security.

Toyota will also have to answer questions as to why they declined to include "brake override" circuits in their cars. The circuit puts the engine in "limp mode" whenever it detects both the brake and the gas pedal being used at the same time. The resulting reduction in engine power allows the brakes to safely stop the car without resorting to turning the engine completely off (and losing power-assisted steering and braking). GM includes brake override circuitry standard in any configuration where the engine could overpower the brakes' ability to stop the car. Other domestic and foreign car manufacturers also include the technology. Why not Toyota?

Myself and my relatives, altogether we have about 11 Toyota vehicles, from corrolla,camry,to land cruiser, lexus and after years and years with millions kms travelling we NEVER had any accident of the same sort.All of the cars were fully imported from Japan, except the 1 corrolla,1 camry(Australia).I read the article and wonder about whats going on with Toyota management these days? Maybe they should just manufacture completely driving system themselves.Reputation like Toyota needs generations to build but can be wiped out in just a few years.

All this is looking well and truly lifted from the tedious Tom Clancy novel Debt of Honor:

On Interstate 40 in Eastern Tennessee, a car accident involving a tractor-trailer and two Japanese-made cars results in the deaths of six people (2 adults, 2 teenagers, a toddler, and an infant). The accident involves the failure of both fuel tanks in the Japanese cars, which causes an explosion. It is revealed that the Japanese-made fuel tanks were manufactured below proper safety standards, which caused them to fail. This stirs long-standing resentments stemming from Japan's protectionist trade policies, and trade negotiations with Japan grind to a halt.

I guess we can expect a JAL 747 to be aimed at the White House soon.

Fadamor at 05:19 AM JST - 30th January. Toyota will also have to answer questions as to why they declined to include "brake override" circuits in their cars.

By 2011, all new Toyota, Lexus, and Scion vehicles sold globally will have updated software installed on vehicle engine control units (ECU) that puts in place a brake override system. This system will automatically idle vehicles when both the brake and throttle are simultaneously depressed.

Do you think Toyota is doing this because they want to? They've had serious pressure from the US government on this. This IS nothing more than a witchhunt. The US government has invested in the US car industry and will do whatever it can to make sure it gets its money back.

And yes, plenty of Americans work for Toyota but tell that to the imbreed hicks so claim "Buy American, but Ford, GM..." They don't seem to understand how badly this will hurt other Americans.

This system will automatically idle vehicles when both the brake and throttle are simultaneously depressed.

Another crude fix. That will completely mess up those drivers who use "heel and toe" techniques for smooth driving through bends...

... it seems the more complex these driving systems get, the more prone to errors they are.