U.S. safety regulators investigate Toyota cars over door fires

Six fires have been reported to the agency out of 14,000,000 Toyota vehicles that is affected and nobody has been hurt. Sounds like another sensational NHTSA sudden fire recall. Among the 20 brands only Mercedes Benz and Porsche have less to complain than Toyota owners. The most complaints in the database, 25 percent of the total is GM cars.

No one should overlook the issues raised by the Toyota recalls, but it is important to keep things in perspective. A broader view of consumer complaints reflect an industry issue, not just a Toyota issue. In a previous sudden accelation accusation, Edmunds and NHTSA’s own data prove that there was a witch hunt and mass hysteria that are not born out by hard facts.

No mention of the BMW recall announced recently i see and the US car makers recalls never get reported here either.

Noted, but as a Japan interest site, German and US manufacturers may not qualify! Balance is good though!

door fire ? please excuse my ignorance, isn't that an unusual place to catch fire ?

No matter how serious it is, I have got to feel it's intensional politic activity of US. To make the issue clear, I believe that Toyota can commit to support for full-investigation in US. In particular, since Toyota had recall issues a few years ago, Toyota should admit the issue if it comes from Toyota's mistake.

@ issa - stop being so negative toward America. They prop your country up financially and they are allowed to check the safety of the products they PAY for. You seem to think Japanese products are perfectly safe for some bizarre (nationalistic?) reason.

Geeezzz.... why Japanese cars always being pinpointed and investigated. How about German cars like BMW engine catching fire due to overheating. Ford and Chevrolet models with defects. That's why Japanese prefer Japanese cars assembled in Japan. IMO, those japanese cars with defects were all assembled in US under US staffs supervisions....hehehe.

6 Cars and it is time to bash Toyota again. Government Motors needs to be served! The plan is to scare the people STUPID into buying the Government Motors product. I looked at a new GM car and the thing was already starting to rust on the showroom floor! Why don't they report all of the GM recalls? GM cars and trucks have inferior paint and electrical systems.

Tell me any other car maker who was cleared of a fault by friggen NASA.

This was quite funny. When NHTSA stated that they were going to ask NASA to conduct the investigation, you basically knew that it was the "fault " of the drivers. It's a polite way to for NHTSA to admit "OK. Their accusation is BS but let's now offend these drivers".

correct that of "let's not offend these drivers".

No mention of the BMW recall announced recently i see and the US car makers recalls never get reported here either.

There are a few posters on here who seem to think Japanese Auto makers don't produce cars with occasional serious problems. NEWSFLASH: They DO. Let's hope they get the problems sorted so no-one is injured or dies.

This probably has to do with a faulty power window switch.

^ Exactly.

people are jumping to conclusions. This is not about a recall, the article says that is an inquiry. Inquiries and recalls are very different animals.

The worlds number 2 top selling car is the Ford F-Series: (1948- ) - 30,000,000+

sfjp330, Toyota gave themselves their own black eye by tripping on their dicks when handling the sudden acceleration issue. Right or wrong, there is a perception about quality now and they will have to win the consumer back. Detroit has made great strides in the last 20 years with quality but I doubt you go and correct anyone who says anything differently, and my guess is that the ratio of Detroit bashers to Toyota bashers hovers somewhere around 100:1. You really have nothing to worry about.

SuperLib Feb. 16, 2012 - 02:42AM JST. Toyota gave themselves their own black eye by tripping on their dicks when handling the sudden acceleration issue. Right or wrong,. there is a perception about quality now and they will have to win the consumer back. Detroit has made great strides in the last 20 years with quality but I doubt you go and correct anyone who says anything differently,

There is no perception. You cannot fool the public. U.S. Goverment went after Toyota when they overtook GM as the leader in sales total and what happened? The NHTSA and NASA didn't have any evidence of the accusation that was made against Toyota. The U.S. goverment and NHTSA has the black eye. About quality? JD Powers top five reliable cars, 1. Lexus, 2. Cadillac, 3. Porsche, 4. Toyota, 5. Scion. The point is 3 out of 5 top reliable cars are made from Toyota. You cannot fool the public by goverment lynching.

Give it up. Toyota handled the recall issue poorly and they paid the price for it. There was no government conspiracy behind Toyota memos showing they would save money by skirting recalls. And getting them to budge on the floormat issue took extreme measures because of stonewalling by Toyota. They were cleared of the claim that electronic issues were causing the acceleration problems thanks to NASA (a US government agency, by the way). Up until that point Toyota could only say that they system was too complex for them to totally rule anything out. In the future you might want to tell the US government that if they are trying to bury a company it's not the best idea to publish a report clearing them when the company is unable to do that on their own.

On top of that, it looks like you're trying to deny the shrinking gap in quality between Detroit and Japan. Wonderful.

We agree that Toyota builds great cars. Where we disagree is the notion that Toyota can do no wrong.

SuperLibFeb. 17, 2012 - 02:06AM JST Give it up. Toyota handled the recall issue poorly and they paid the price for it. There was no government conspiracy behind Toyota memos showing they would save money by skirting recalls. And getting them to budge on the floormat issue took extreme measures because of stonewalling by Toyota.

Stonewalling? This was political and sadly misunderstood by most people like you just hearing this is a conviction on Toyota. No Toyota Engineers and independent goverment inspectors have yet seen a single real design defect or part to fix any real problems with a mechanically sticking throttle or gas pedal besides the floor mat issue; If you have worked on many cars, you know that there are two to three large springs on the throttle-body butterfly itself on every car, and these are in addition to the return spring and the natural design of the cable to return to the closed position anyway. If you remove the accelerator cable and open the throttle wide, it snaps shut all on its own, and the engine vacuum is naturally trying to suck the butterfly closed, not open, when the engine in running. This recall is all being done to satisfy the peoples fears and it cost Toyota over $2 billion dollars. No representative at Toyota and NHTSA was able to confirm the problem. At the same time, GM was offering $1000 to trade-in recalled Toyotas? Why? GM is majority Government owned and NHTSA is a Government agency. What an unfair advantage. People need to think for themselves and realize what's really going on. How many of us own, have owned and drive Toyotas daily, and have had or are having no problems? I have yet to see a 'real' issue here.

sfjp330Feb. 17, 2012 - 05:03AM JST. On top of that, it looks like you're trying to deny the shrinking gap in quality between Detroit and Japan. Wonderful.

Only Ford has made vast improvements jbut the resale value stinks. Sadly, 25 percent of todays recalls are GM products, and Chrysler has one of the worst reliablity problems. If you don't believe me, check the resale value of 5 years old Camry versus Malibu or Taurus. Are they srinking in gap with Toyota for resale value? Toyota Camry is worth almost 40-50 percent more than Malibu after 5 years. Why don't you tell me why?

Toyota themselves came out and said that their electronic system was too complicated for them to fully understand if it was causing problems or not. They were only cleared by a report from NASA. Tell me any other car maker who was cleared of a fault by friggen NASA. Are you claiming that NASA didn't get the memo that the US government was out to harm Toyota?

Do you have information saying the US government ordered GM to offer rebates? Do you have information showing the US government handled the day to day activities of General Motors? If not, then please bury your conspiracy theory. We both know that all car companies, including Korean, German, and European benefited from Toyota's mistakes. I could just as easily use your information and say the government was working on behalf of BMW. The result would have been the same.

Please, stop with the quality issue. If you know this much about cars then you know I'm right. And by now you should know a little bit about cars myself. You intentionally chose resale value which is the area where poor perception hurts automakers the most. Things like initial quality studies by independent sources all a shrink in the gap and I know you know this. The US automakers are still hurt by the perception of quality, something you want us to shed tears over for Toyota. You actually sit here and tell me that people don't educate themselves about Toyota while intentionally distorting the picture for Detroit.

SuperLibFeb. 17, 2012 - 12:36PM JST. Toyota themselves came out and said that their electronic system was too complicated for them to fully understand if it was causing problems or not. They were only cleared by a report from NASA. Tell me any other car maker who was cleared of a fault by friggen NASA.

Look, the overall data does explain why Toyota took so long to recognize a problem. Intermittent faults that can’t be duplicated in testing and are rare enough to be swamped by operator error? It can take a long, long time to collect enough data before the null hypothesis ceases to be the best hypothesis. Toyota taking a long time to decide there was a real problem is perfectly innocent and understandable.

Sure, the trouble here is that Toyota at some point apparently concluded it did have a real problem and responded with the total garbage solution of floormat replacement. That was an irresponsible “we must do something” decision in the face of a real problem, taken probably because the engineers couldn’t give management a real answer and management wasn’t willing to wait for one. The reason that sort of thing is irresponsible is that it tends to be followed by management telling engineering to stop “wasting” time and money on researching the problem, since the problem is “solved”. $16 million, given Toyota’s annual sales, isn’t an excessive way of making that point. Not that I believe in the purity of the U.S. government in this case, but Toyota really did do something it shouldn’t have.

That there is a real problem, though, doesn’t mean that the Camry is unsafe. This problem is obviously rare enough that, frankly, it isn’t worth considering when making a purchasing decision; the risk is utterly swamped by the normal risks of driving a car. It’s even more unimportant now because the ultimate procedure for safely countering the problem—shifting into neutral—is well-publicized.

Pressure on Toyota remains relentless from the expected sources.

Cars are not meeting the required standards does not matter who made them, an unsafe, flawed product has to be replaced or fixed, dead or injured customers don't return.

Japan Bashing !

Japan has not yet signed tpp agreement.

Then,imagine after.....

Japan produces the world's best cars.

I'll back my Mercedes-Benz over a Toyota or Daihatsu any day of the week!

Al StewartFeb. 13, 2012 - 12:57PM JST The worlds number 2 top selling car is the Ford F-Series: (1948- ) - 30,000,000+

Ford has more problems of recall then Toyota. Ford F-150 dangerous fuel tank design may cause recall of 2.7 million trucks that could break and lead to fires. Will Ford have to recall 2.7 million trucks? NHTSA and Ford have now received 243 reports of the tanks falling. In some trucks, fire started when the fuel tank fell. The F150 trucks have more incident of sudden accelation trouble reports. How many did complaints Toyota get? 6 reports and they are jumping into inquiry? Chevy Volt also has fire problem, why a delay in recall?

Furukawa Electric, Yaskawa Electric, Denso, Toyota (2008), Honda (2011) Mazda (january 2012), Nissan (february 2012).

Obama and his friends NHTSA are laughing my ass off !

They should say;

We need fining in a few billion a few more Japanese companies.

The other says;

How easy it is to squeeze money out of these idiots !!!

This is the policy of the Democrats because they hate foreign companies and especially, Japanese companies.

The goal is to destroy the reputation of Japanese companies.

Good job obama!