Tag Archives: Toyota

The History OF Unintended Acceleration

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Toyota’s unintended acceleration problem has been flooding the media lately causing fear in anyone who drives on the roads. You hear stories of how someone’s car started speeding uncontrollably and the deaths and injuries that resulted. Drivers of these vehicles said they pressed the brakes, but the vehicle just didn’t respond.

You may be surprised to learn that this is a problem that has been around for quite a while, and is not limited to only Toyota vehicles. ConsumerAffairs.com has received sudden acceleration complaints over the years from a wide range of makes, including Kia, Jaguar, BMW and Ford. Ford coming in second after Toyota. In fact, during the 80’s, Audi went through the same legal and media problems that Toyota experiences now for unintended acceleration.

In 2005 there was an estimated 20,000 consumers who complained to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) of sudden unintended acceleration. Some complaints as far back as the late 1980’s when vehicle first started to be controlled with electronic controls. The problem is difficult to recreate without tampering with the vehicles electronics, so in most cases there is no indication that the vehicle has malfunctioned.

According to engineers familiar with electronic technology any electronic interference could cause the accelerator to surge out of control. In these type of systems there are fail-safes that will reset the computer and will store an error code which can be read by a technician when brought in for repairs. So far, any vehicle that has experienced unintended acceleration has not brought up an error code indicating anything went wrong.

Toyota Disputes Electronics Problem In Web-cast

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Today at 1:00 p.m. EST Toyota will be holding a web-cast to show consumers that the problems with their vehicles is not electronics related.

During the Toyota Congressional hearings, David W. Gilbert, a professor at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, had told congress that he was able to recreate Toyota’s unintended acceleration by manipulating its vehicles electronics. Toyota will try to duplicate this scenario and debunk it.

Toyota is calling in the director of Stanford University’s Center for Automotive Research to try to argue the claims. Toyota said Stanford professor Chris Gerdes will show that the malfunctions Gilbert produced “are completely unrealistic under real-world conditions and can easily be reproduced on a wide range of vehicles made by other manufacturers.”

Toyota also has hired a consulting firm to study whether electronic problems could cause unintended acceleration. The firm, Exponent Inc., released a report saying that it has found no link between the two.

The webcast is part of a campaign by Toyota to discredit critics, repair its damaged reputation and begin restoring trust in its vehicles.

Did Toyota’s Recall Fix The Problem?

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According to reports filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), complaints of unintended acceleration were filed in the last two weeks from Toyota owners that claim that they are still experiencing unintended acceleration even after their recall has been done. In addition to these reports of sudden acceleration, complaints of unusual vehicle behavior, such as erratic check-engine lights, have also been reported.

Although the allegations are unverified, there are concerns that the millions of recall notices issued by Toyota may not fully address the problem. During Toyota’s congressional hearing, congress members voiced their concerns that the problem was not mechanical and that the onboard computer may be the problem.

“There is already doubt out there that the solutions Toyota has put forward really fixed the problem of unintended acceleration,” said Aaron Bragman, auto industry analyst at IHS Global Insight. He cautioned, however, that the complaints should be thoroughly investigated.

Toyota spokeswoman Celeste Migliore said she was not aware of complaints that sudden acceleration had recurred despite receiving the repair, but said the auto maker will closely monitor the NHTSA database.

“We very much would like to have any of those individuals who claim they’ve had unintended acceleration after the fix go back to the dealership,” Migliore said. “If there was an accident, we want to see the vehicle and the driver and the accident report.”

Toyota #1 For Unintended Acceleration

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During Toyota’s Congressional hearing, Congress members have been attacking Toyota not only for putting over eight million dangerous cars on the road, but also for how the recall was handled. The Toyota investigation puts government officials in an awkward position of punishing one automaker while being part owner of another. The federal government is a 60 percent shareholder in General Motors, one of Toyota’s biggest competitors.

Toyota Motor Corporation has received the highest number of consumer complaints of unintended acceleration filed with NHTSA. The complaints cover model years 2005 to 2010. According to Edmunds.com, while Toyota has received the most complaints for unintended accelerations, the total filed complaints are fewer than most auto makers. Toyota ranked 17th of 20 automakers in the number of complaints filed with NHTSA over the past decade. Toyota had 9.1 percent of the complaints from 2001 through 2010; during this period, the company sold 13.5 percent of all new cars in the United States. The vehicle with the most complaints, was the Toyota Camry, but it was also the best selling model in 2009.

“This is a very small problem here,” Dow Jones columnist Al Lewis told Fox News on America’s Newsroom. “We have had 2,000 complaints in a decade against the back drop of millions and millions of cars sold.” Auto industry expert Lauren Fix tells Fox the problem shouldn’t be minimized. “When you have all the complaints and Toyota has three times more deaths with the unintended acceleration than any other manufacturer combined, we have a problem.”

Toyota Congressional Hearing. Day Two.

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On day two of the Toyota Congressional hearing, the focus was on the president of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, and transportation secretary, Raymond LaHood. Both men spent hours in front of the Committee answering questions about Toyota’s recall for unintended acceleration.

Ray LaHood appeared alone, saying that he was taking full responsibility for his department’s actions in how this case was handled. When asked whether the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) had treated Toyota the same an auto manufacturer who received government bailout money, Mr. LaHood replied, “Absolutely, there is not a cozy relationship. In the past three years, we’ve recalled 23 million cars.”

Akio Toyoda appeared with the company’s chief operating officer for North America, Yoshimi Inaba. When asked, Mr. Inaba said that Toyota was aware of issues with sticking pedals in Britain and Ireland in late 2008. By August 2009, Toyota began a production change on cars sold in Europe that was completed by January, weeks before it recalled millions of vehicles in the United States.“We did not hide it,” Mr. Inaba said. “But it was not properly shared.

During Toyoda’s testimony, he assured lawmakers that the company was doing whatever they could to deal with the recalls and that they are placing a priority to make quality vehicles. When criticizes by a committee representative about not showing enough remorse, Toyota replied with, “I extend my condolences from the deepest part of my heart.”

Toyota Ranks Well In Consumer Reports

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After all the news we have been hearing about Toyota and their problems, Consumer Reports still ranks Toyota vehicles as number three. (The same ranking as last year.) The rankings are based on performance, comfort, utility and reliability of over 280 different vehicles.

“Toyota builds extremely good, reliable cars”, said David Champion, senior director of Consumer Reports’ Auto Test Center. “I think once they get through all the recalls you will see that they are a very reliable manufacturer.” The magazine ended up dropping a couple of Toyota models from the Top Picks after the company suspended sales because of the recall. Since the vehicles were not for sale at the time, they could not make the list.

Honda (which includes Acura models) and Subaru were tied for first place, the fourth year that Honda was the leading manufacturer. They were followed by Toyota, and Hyundai (including Kia) which was ranked fourth, up from ninth last year. American manufacturers fared poorly. Ford was ranked eleventh, moving up one place from last year. General Motors and Chrysler occupied the bottom two slots, respectively.

Corolla Problems. Another Recall For Toyota?

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Toyota and U.S. regulators are looking into a possible recall on Toyota’s best selling car the Corolla. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has received 163 complaints about the steering in its 2009-2010 Corollas. Toyota said Wednesday it is looking into complaints about steering issues with the Corolla in the U.S., though it said it had received fewer than 100 reports and it was too early to consider a recall.

Toyota has been a top seller for decades and has sold nearly 1.3 million Corolla cars worldwide just last year. The recent rash of recalls has hurt Toyotas reputation resulting in sales to be the lowest since January 2006. Fears of an extended sales slump pushed Toyota’s shares down 3.7 percent in a flat market in Tokyo, compounding a slide that has sent the stock down 17 percent since its recall was announced on January 21.

Fix For Toyota Prius Brake Problem

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If you have received a recall notice for the brakes on your new 2010 Toyota Prius, you will be happy to know the fix is a quick one. As a matter of fact, you will probably have your car back in thirty minutes, and even though the problem is with the brakes, you will not need a mechanic to fix it. That’s because the problem is with a software glitch and the solution is as easy as fixing a security flaw in Microsoft windows.

Most modern cars are run on computers these days which eliminates the need for a mechanical connection. For many people, that’s not a comforting thought. We don’t like the thought of computers running our cars because software experiences glitches. Each year, cars get more complicated, some having over forty microprocessors in them. Although these microprocessors make it more difficult for you to work on your own car, some of them actually make your car easier to service.