Safety Research & Strategies letter to Administrator Strickland asks why Toyota it wasn’t recalling its accessory sport pedals. The automaker has identified these aftermarket accessories, which it sells and installs through Toyota dealers, as contributors to unintended acceleration. Toyota made this startling admission in denying a claim by Michael Teston, an unfortunate Toyota customer from [...]
We have been watching with great interest as NHTSA has suddenly proclaimed 34 deaths in Toyota sudden unintended acceleration incidents, (when nary but one has been officially counted in eight investigations) and Toyota has doubled down on nothing-is-wrong-but-floor-mats-and-sticky-accelerator-pedals. We are pleased to see that NHTSA, under the current administration, is now taking the fatality reports [...]
This morning, Jim Lentz, President and CEO of Toyota Motor Sales, joined the brigade of executives dispatched to put out the unintended acceleration wildfire currently consuming the company’s sales, stock rating and reputation. As the Today Show’s Matt Lauer tried to corner him, Lentz emphatically insisted that the only two issues affected Toyota vehicles are [...]
Toyota announced on Thursday that it was recalling about 2.3 million vehicles to correct sticking accelerator pedals, after investigating isolated reports of sticking accelerator pedal mechanisms. Toyota claimed it was a wear issue – even though most of the models recalled included 2009 and 2010 model years. After the news broke, several stories noted that [...]
We, here at The Safety Record Blog, understand the hell of a story that breaks at 5 p.m. on a Friday, with every relevant source already on the way to his weekend and unavailable by cell. We do not understand all of the breathless second and third-day stories in which the reporter hasn’t taken the [...]
In a curious twist of timing, Toyota announced another massive recall related to Sudden Unintended Acceleration – this time 2.3 million late model Toyotas plagued with “sticking accelerator pedals.” The timing is suspiciously pre-emptive – the company’s feet were about to be singed an hour later by ABC World News Tonight, followed by a Toyota [...]
As we all should have learned nine years ago from the Ford Explorer-Firestone tire maelstrom, it’s not often just one thing that creates a catastrophe of epic proportions. Defect issues that rise to the top of the charts are frequently the result of a multitude of problems that align to create a widespread hazard. In [...]
Earlier this week, The Safety Record reported another Toyota SUA incident involving a 2007 Avalon and a New Jersey driver who managed to get his over-accelerating vehicle to the dealership with smoking brakes and an engine at full throttle. For those of you who missed it: This owner had experienced several unintended acceleration incidents – [...]
Safety Research & Strategies has completed our latest review of Toyota unintended acceleration complaint data. Our database consists of incidents from the following sources: Consumer complaints to NHTSA Toyota-submitted claims from several NHTSA investigations into unintended acceleration Incidents reported by media organizations Consumer contacts made to our firm and other firms that are reporting incidents [...]
In early December 2005, Toyota learned of two early model Lexus IS250 with accelerator pedals “out of tolerance” – meaning the pedal could become stuck. One instance occurred during a dealer pre-delivery inspection and a second was reported by Toyota Canada during transportation at the port facility. The automaker had received no complaints in the [...]
