REPORT: Toyota may offer to fix 4 million accelerator pedals
While Toyota maintains its position that recent accelerator issues have only to do with floor mats, the company has reportedly agreed to "make changes to gas pedals in certain U.S. models under an agreement with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration." That means that 3.8 million Toyota products – among which are the Camry, Avalon, Prius, Tacoma, Tundra, and Lexus IS250, IS350, ES350 – will be recalled to address the accelerators.
With negotiations said to be ongoing between the NHTSA and Toyota, the automaker hasn't said what those changes will be, nor has it stated exactly when the recall will begin. According to Reuters, Toyota has a $5.6 billion slush fund to pay for recalls so the repair costs, while sure to be intergalactic, shouldn't affect earnings. The company can only hope now that the rumors, current lawsuits, other current lawsuits, yet-to-be-filed lawsuits, and the 24-hour news cycle don't do the kind of damage that is much worse than merely financial.
[Source: Reuters, MarketWatch]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Conundrum 3:07PM (11/15/2009)
The black eye becoming infected.
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Luis 4:59PM (11/15/2009)
Infected? The fact they are planning to fix it before it becomes and even bigger problem continues to show that they are acting more responsibly than other companies have in the past.
mofan 5:25PM (11/15/2009)
They are just trying to hide real problem. It happens even in cars with no floormats
SkiD666 5:27PM (11/15/2009)
Luis, NHTSA is forcing Toyota to perform a proper fix, they aren't volunteering to do it.
Conundrum 5:56PM (11/15/2009)
Yes Luis infected. The longer Toyota prolongs this without a satisfactory resolution, the more negative news stories there will be, the more class action lawsuits there will be, the more public perception and confidence in Toyota will slide... Infected and growing worse until properly treated!
daleam 6:27PM (11/15/2009)
Luis is full of bull$!t as usual. It's exactly as others as well as I said early on while we were berated by Toyota fanboys. This is piss-poor engineering and it bit them in the a$$.
TigerMil 9:27PM (11/15/2009)
ahhh..just cut an inch of the bottom of the accelerator with a disc
Ken 3:07PM (11/15/2009)
The fix is reported to be a piece of string attached to the gas pedal, which the driver can simply pull in case of the throttle being stuck wide open. Toyota will also roll this feature out to future models, under the name 'StringSafe'.
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Tourian 10:14AM (11/16/2009)
Unintended acceleration brings a whole new meeting to their slogan, "Moving Forward."
Ken 10:27AM (11/16/2009)
I think we should start working as advertising consultants for Toyota.
Pokey 3:19PM (11/15/2009)
Just a way to get the cars brought in under the guise of fixing the pedal, so they can secretly fix the real problem.
Yeah yeah, a little far-fetched. I am kidding of course. Or am I?
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click_playaz 4:07PM (11/15/2009)
Yeah that's what I always think about. They want to keep the real problem in secret, but I still gonna buy Toyota/Lexus.
Not THAT Matt 3:23PM (11/15/2009)
Why they didn't voluntarily offer to fix this a while ago is beyond me...
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zamafir 4:57PM (11/15/2009)
car companies just don't do that. german, japanese, american. it's annoying.
Not THAT Matt 5:51PM (11/15/2009)
I can see not doing that on lesser stuff - happens all the time. But fighting the NHTSA on an issue that affects 4 million vehicles is pretty ridiculous.
zamafir 6:15PM (11/15/2009)
yup, and they all do it all the time.
Not THAT Matt 6:38PM (11/15/2009)
Well, when you have as many God damned problems as Toyota (engine sludge, etc) it's probably just easiest to ignore them all.
Wayne 11:49PM (11/15/2009)
Not THAT Matt, go watch "Fight Club" and you will understand. Car companies pay people to determine if it will be less expensive to pay out lawsuits, or to issue a recall.
the4thheat 12:07AM (11/16/2009)
I don't think it's really an issue in the sense that the car is unsafe when set up correctly (i.e. one floormat securely locked down) but that it's somewhat easy to have the floor mat end up hitting the accelerator on some of the vehicles.
This would be VERY unlikely to affect all 4 million vehicles though since the pedal designs are different. There's a reason why it mostly affected ES350's-the pedals in those cars are a wedge that's FLUSH WITH THE FLOOR, so any unsecured item can fairly easily ride up onto the gas pedal.
I like Toyotas (and own one) but frankly I hated that stupid pedal design and can definitely see how it could cause all these accelerations (yes even the ones where people claim it wasn't the floormat-it's usually some 70 year old lady who later finds out she had two floor mats stacked up or something similar, and of course they don't think it's the floormat because they managed to stop the car after getting it unstuck, etc.)
As far as I could tell they put this pedal in just so it'd be differentiated from a Camry and *maybe* makes it slightly easier to very smoothly accelerate, but honestly the pedals feel horrible and with this issue they honestly should just put the Camry pedals on all the ES vehicles and end this nonsense.
When this is all over I suspect they'll mostly recall the ES series to modify the pedals but it definitely won't cover all 4 million Toyotas they did the floormat thing on. I can't believe people actually went in for this fix either-I heard about someone actually scheduling for this recall for their Corolla and I was incredulous. I'm guessing that the recall notice doesn't point out that the fix is just making sure your floor mats are secured and putting zip ties in.
Seriously people need to use their damned brains-how about looking down at your floormat, making sure that it's secured, looking at your pedal to make sure that it's nowhere near the floormat, then not panicking and wasting time going to the dealership? *sigh*
vetteracer 3:26PM (11/15/2009)
That is one cheap and lousy designed gas pedal that does not even belong is a low end model much less their claims of the Lexus
The norm that the japballs report this on a weekend when most news is not being read and worse is they are fighting with the feds to pay the least possible in their F'up.
Yea quality is at the top and basic design of a gas pedal in 21 century and they still cannot figure out how a gas pedal works.
You see it all when TOY ota says they will only fix the problem for USA cars but let everyone else die a slow death outside of it.
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