Toyota floormat recall gets explained
Wondering what the deal is with all those potentially dangerous Toyota floormats? After all, just about every car sold in America is equipped with or at least offers optional floormats, sometimes with multiple choices. So, why are Toyota's mats being singled out? The short answer is because the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration has received a slew of complaints that indicate the floormat design used in a number of Toyota cars and trucks may cause the accelerator pedal to stick wide open. But why?
Our friends at KickingTires took a look at the 2010 Prius that happens to be in their fleet at the moment, and they found that the mechanism that locates and holds the car's floormats in place is a possible cause for concern. It seems that Toyota engineered a floormat hook that can be detached from the carpet so that cars not equipped with optional mats don't have latches protruding from the floor. Unfortunately, this design also means that there are two places where the mats could become unhooked.
According to Toyota spokesman John Hanson, some other Toyota vehicles not included in the recall are also equipped with this same floormat hook design. Only the models that have received specific complaints were included in the initial recall, though more Toyota vehicles could be added once the details are finalized, including some 2010 models.
[Source: KickingTires]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Yaroukh 5:40PM (10/01/2009)
I can explain that easily: Toyota sucks. (Hi, Brian!)
/kiddin! :)
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Yaroukh 6:26PM (10/01/2009)
wow! my very first half-star :))
lighten up guys ;)
Tool 5:55PM (10/01/2009)
While there might be a legitimate design defect with these specific Toyota/Lexus floormats, there also might be 'operator error'. i.e. owners not putting them back in place correctly after a car wash/vacuuming or not re-attaching them correctly if get un-hooked.
This seems like a bit of an over-reaction to that one accident last month because even a decade ago, most floormats didn't even have hooks top keep them properly in place.
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Leclerc 5:58PM (10/01/2009)
Finally someone with a little sense on this site. Hey Yaroukh, don't get Brian fired up. You know how barroom mentality goes over here.
Andrew L 6:43PM (10/01/2009)
my 10 year old Sable has a hook on the floor mat... hell even my friends 94 Taurus Wagon has a hook on its floor mat
jv2k 7:01PM (10/01/2009)
Seriously. Not a car that me or my family owns right now has a hook in the floormats. This whole thing is pretty ridiculous.
No disrespect for the dead but it was an easily preventable accident.
Luis 7:30PM (10/01/2009)
Blame can also lay with the dealer, as they may not install the mats appropriately. Especially when the salesman "throws them in" after the sale. He/she may just toss em in without much thought. In this case it's the dealers fault, not the manufacturer.
On my BMW you have to physically screw in the plastic piece into the floor that holds the mat. There are many ways this can go wrong, and for an individual they may just say f-it. Also, when I had my BMW-dealer loaner car the hook was not installed and the mat on the driver's side was indeed on the accelerator pedal. THIS IS NOT JUST a Toyota problem.
Judy Zik 9:57PM (10/01/2009)
We have double floor mats in our vehicles. The typical manufacturer ones and the rubber ones pant saver type on top. Have done this since my first car like millions of folks out there and never had a problem. Obviously the pant saver type are not hooked into anything. I think the mats are getting a bad rap here. It is likely the accelerator pedal setup that is to blame but it is easier to remove or replace mats.
the4thheat 10:46PM (10/01/2009)
I can assure you that these hooks are actually a pain in the butt to get out once you have a thick floormat hooked onto it, so the odds of the hook magically popping out when they're affixed to a floor mat are zero. Seriously go into a Toyota or Lexus dealership and try to take a set of hooked in floormats out, it's like some insane contortionist exercise, especially on the thicker all-weather mats.
Of course if someone gets lazy and decides that they don't want to deal with doing that each time and takes the hooks out and starts just throwing their floormats in the car that's a pretty easy way to ensure this problem. In fact I noticed that one of the Lexus vehicles in the youtube video supposedly proclaiming that it couldn't be the mats very clearly didn't have the floormat hooked down at all since the guy then just takes the mat right out.
I'm talking about this idiot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3lq3839HdA
Since his mat is obviously not hooked down how do we know it wasn't by the accelerator when he had his problem? The holes in the carpet really are noticable only when it's been sitting in that spot a long time, so it could have slipped up from his stomping on it and not using the damned hooks like he should.
So far there hasn't been anybody who's complained of using a single OEM flootmat with the hooks properly hooked in that also had unintended acceleration, and I don't think that's a coincidence. Seriously people don't be lazy, hook up your damned floor mats instead of insisting that there's no way the damned floor mat could possibly move (the youtube guy spends another video attempting to "prove" that it couldn't move by sliding his foot like three times on the mat). Pretty obviously it can if the only people having this problem also happen to have double floormats or unhooked floormats or aftermarket floormats.
gerrrg 1:18AM (10/02/2009)
It was very difficult to get it on in the first place in my xB2. I went for a while with it not hooked on properly, and it did ride up,so I eventually decided to make a concerted effort to install it correctly by finessing the hook into the hole carefully as to not break it, but with enough force to make it finally snap in.
If this is the same hook in these other vehicles, I'm almost certain that my pain is their pain.
daleam 1:18AM (10/02/2009)
The design defect is the accelerator pedal. Get the damn thing up off the floor and you wouldn't have this problem.
jmc8387 5:56PM (10/01/2009)
It has nothing to do with the hooks people! Maybe you should start getting your "explanations" from Toyota motors and not some random tire shop. The problem is that the all-weather floor mats do not hook down. Therefore these mats have a tendency to slide up. Due to the extra girth/thickness of the rubber mats, the pedal gets stuck in the groves and doesn't release because its hard rubber, not plush carpet. This is why Toyota is recalling these mats.
Get it right for once Autoblog!! You misinform people on so many issues on a weekly basis. Do a little more research before you post irrelevant/inaccurate information.
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swimstarguy 6:22PM (10/01/2009)
I have non oem hard rubber mats in my car that have never given me issues. Pull them down if they slide up. Duh...
Shadyman 7:25PM (10/01/2009)
@swimstarguy:
I think the problem was probably that people *wouldn't* pull them down if they rode up.
Luis 7:33PM (10/01/2009)
I had a 2004 RAV4 with the all weather mats, and they indeed did attach to that hook, as the rubber had a perforated cutout for the hook to go through.
the4thheat 10:55PM (10/01/2009)
The all weather mats have holes for the hooks-they are a pain to put on the hooks but they have holes for them.
But some people buy the weathertech kind or just don't bother to hook the toyota ones up because they're lazy.
And in the case of the fatal accident, I've read that some dealerships don't like getting the interiors of loaners dirty so they do some insane crap with putting in oversized floor mats upside down or some other similarly idiotic thing. Seriously the family members still alive should sue the crap out of the dealership even if the driver really panicked too much to think straight.
Boreas 5:51PM (10/02/2009)
How about instead of fussing about with the hooks, have Toyota fix the real problem and not have the gas pedals so close to the floor. There is your design defect!
rprice52 1:16PM (10/08/2009)
The Toyota and Lexus mats DO HOOK DOWN YOU IDIOT!
Leclerc 6:01PM (10/01/2009)
Why would Autoblog want to get something like this right? It brings out the domestic fanboys, along with the import fans to duke it out. They do keep the conversations spirited which gets more of us to respond. They love the drama, makes the world go round.
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Luis 7:34PM (10/01/2009)
It gets them advertising dollars, hello!