And son of a gun if Toyota didn’t release its long awaited quality report on the same day! (A little awkward, we know.) This panel of Very Serious People outside of the company was charged with the task of evaluating just what went wrong:

“The Charter directs the Panel to conduct a thorough and independent review of the soundness of these processes and provide its assessment to Toyota’s senior management.”

The 60-page result, A Road Forward: The Report of the Toyota North American Quality Advisory Panel was pretty much a re-hash of everything that has already been reported, and largely air-brushed at that.

The panel did find some room for improvement, and we liked the part about Toyota’s response to outside critics: “First, while it is clear that Toyota applies the TPS [Toyota Production System] process and the Toyota Way to problems or flaws found internally, Toyota does not appear to treat feedback from external sources, including customers, independent rating agencies, and regulators, the same way.” SRS must have been dropped from that list.  “For example, it doesn’t appear that Toyota applied genchi genbutsu [go and see] as quickly and thoroughly as it could have in investigating and seeking out the root causes of customer complaints regarding issues such as UA.” Instead it reacted to customer complaints with “skepticism” and “defensiveness.” Would hiring a well-connected public relations firm to smear SRS count as skepticism or defensiveness? What about charging down to Southern Illinois University to scare the begeebers out of Professor Dave Gilbert’s bosses? (This stuff was no doubt edited from the final version.)

We personally had a lot of fun reading the footnotes – 160 of them – to see what heretofore unknown documents contributed to this deep dive into the quality problems plaguing the world’s number one automaker.  Let’s see: A lot of Toyota press releases, some NHTSA press releases and news clippings; a few books about the Toyota company culture you can buy on Amazon and the NHTSA and NASA reports.

The panel was positively cheerful about the last two. It cited them as the number one reason to feel optimistic about the quality of Toyota vehicles: “..extensive testing and analysis by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) have revealed no electronic problems or software errors that could have resulted in unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles.”

Geez, we know that a lot of scientific words can be off-putting, but did anyone read that NESC report? We mean the whole thing. We read it and re-read it, and it doesn’t inspire confidence in Toyota’s electronics.

At least one panel member, Brian O’Neill, former president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, might have read it. In a story by Bloomberg News about the report, O’Neill averred that perhaps the safety of Toyota’s electronics had not been so definitively settled.

“There’s still a serious debate as to whether these were serious safety problems,” O’Neill said.

This tough stance on recall timeliness is welcome – but does not resolve the larger issues raised by Toyota unintended acceleration – namely how defects are defined in the era of automotive electronics and how such defects are investigated when they are rare, multi-root-cause, and potentially deadly?

The dribble of documents released by the Multi-District Litigation and Congress so far show that UA has been duplicated by Toyota technicians and, contrary to attempts by Toyota advocates and agency investigators to pass off all incidents as driver error, sticky pedals, big shoes and floor mats, there are instances when reliable technical personnel take the vehicle for a test spin and experience UA with no pedal involvement. In fact, we have discovered that Toyota techs were able to duplicate UA in one of very public and widely debated case – but lied to the consumer about it. (We’ll feature that story in a future post.)

The root cause – or causes – of such instances remain obscured, for the moment. There are multiple possibilities. (We suspect that Toyota execs and technical staff in Japan have a much better idea of why these instances occur.) We know that Toyota has bought back vehicles that have experienced a UA event in front of dealership personnel for further testing. Independent testing and vehicle inspections continue to show Toyota’s fault detection software has some serious flaws – flaws that allow unwanted events to occur undetected and without activation of the failsafe features.  There are no regulations that govern the layers of safety need in today’s sophisticated vehicle electronics.  While some manufacturers follow strict multi-tiered safety strategies that catch inevitable (and sometimes rare) occurrences, Toyota appears to be missing some core layers.  How and whether this gets addressed will set the foundation for the future of motor vehicle defect investigations and recalls.

Eventually, this knot will be untangled – but by whom? The National Academy of Sciences is still working on its report. But the panelists aren’t experts in vehicle electronics and have an incredibly broad mandate to review everything from electronic controls design and reliability to environmental factors to cyber-security of automotive electronic control systems.  We don’t expect any revelations there. The Inspector General is looking at NHTSA’s investigatory process, and this work may yield some insight and suggested improvements. The joint NASA-NHTSA effort is scheduled to conclude in 2011.  NHTSA still has an open Recall Query, RQ10-003, to determine if Toyota too narrowly defined the defect in its two UA-related recalls.

And that takes us back to our first question. ODI investigators have traditionally been broken parts guys and gals. What happens if the defect is a line of code or a faulty detection strategy made of digital Swiss cheese? The agency itself may have to broaden the concept of defect to address the evolution of vehicle computer systems and electronics and whether rare events with serious consequences are safety-related defects under their mandate.

To our second question about investigations into a rare, random, and yet potentially deadly defects – the agency isn’t going to get anywhere until it catches up to today’s engine systems. Some of the agency’s public efforts to date, such as the “study” of SUA events using Event Data Recorders, showed how far NHTSA has to go. The agency mischaracterized the data and failed to address the many discrepancies in the readouts. Further, it omitted any context about the questionable reliability of Toyota’s EDRs and about the incidents it included.  The “results” didn’t add much of anything to the discussion other than blaring headlines that alleged NHTSA exonerated Toyota of electronic defects.

Toyota SUA has also exposed more regulatory fissures. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 124 Accelerator Controls has pretty much lost its relevance. Its purpose is: “to reduce deaths and injuries resulting from engine overspeed caused by malfunctions in the accelerator control system.” In 2005, NHTSA proposed amending it. But, the industry sought to rescind the standard, arguing that market forces and litigation pressure were sufficient to assure fail-safe performance without a safety standard. The agency terminated the rulemaking.

And, while these broad questions beg for answers, automakers are experimenting with even more sophisticated and integrated electronics.

Three record fines in one year ain’t beanbag. In all three cases – the relay rods, the accelerator pedal and the floor mats – Toyota had recalled the affected vehicles overseas months before it got around to recalling those components here. It’s refreshing to see the agency enforce the law. But penalizing a manufacturer for failing to file a timely defect report only requires counting to five. The agency will greet 2011 with the much more complicated issue of unintended acceleration hanging in the balance. We’ll address that in a future post.

In the meantime, back to the fines. The details were MIA. NHTSA did not say when it thought Toyota had a duty to recall those components. Toyota didn’t admit it did anything wrong. Since the agency hasn’t made its case for the penalty to the public, the Safety Record Blog will do it for them.

Why Toyota Was Late in Recalling the Floor Mats

In March, Toyota submitted a detailed chronology of the events leading up to its first floor mat recall in September 2007, when Toyota shut down Engineering Analysis 07010, by launching a floor mat recall. The chronology contained scant detail, but it did yield several interesting points: Toyota claimed to have had practically no complaints about floor mat interference; it scrambled to take action beginning in March 2007 to avert a NHTSA investigation; and it initiated a floor mat “field action” in the European market sometime in July 2007, two months before the automaker announced a recall in the U.S.

Further, the chronology was at odds with information presented to the agency in PE-07016. The chronology did not explain these discrepancies.

For example, the chronology showed that prior to taking any action, Toyota had only two reports of floor-mat interference – a field technical report in February 2006 involving a 2005 Prius and September dealership report involving a 2007 Lexus 350ES, using multiple floor mats – before it decided to stop the sale of all of All Weather Floor Mats to implement changes. In its June 11, 2007 response to PE07-016, Toyota says it had no field reports related to pedal entrapment in MY2007 Lexus ES350s.  Further, according to the response Toyota filed in June 2007 to PE07-016, it had received 38 consumer complaints related to pedal entrapment in Lexus 350ES vehicles – eight involved crashes; five with injuries. The chronology does not mention any of these incidents as influencing their ensuing actions.

On March 27, 2007, the automaker says that added a hangtag to be removed by customers and put a product usage label on the packaging. A stop-sale would appear to be an extraordinary reaction, if there were only two incidents in seven months involving different makes, models and model years. However, it is more likely that Toyota’s decision to add these warnings was an effort to get out in front of a pending NHTSA investigation.

According to the Toyota chronology, the automaker learned on March 29, 2007 that NHTSA opened a Preliminary Evaluation on the floor mat issue. However, e-mails offered as exhibits in the multi-district litigation show that Toyota already knew that an Opening Resume on floor mat interference in the ES350 was soon in the offing. In the days leading up the official opening on an investigation, Toyota’s manager of government affairs, Christopher Tinto, informed his colleague Mitch Kato, about the state of negotiations with NHTSA, which clearly began before Toyota’s March 27 decision:

“I spoke to NHTSA management today (K. Demeter) about a potential compromise on the ES350 floor mat Issue. In lieu of a Part 573 safely recall, I offered the following:

Toyota will send a letter to all 2007MY ES350 owners reminding them not to install all weather mats on top of existing mats; In addition, we will enclose a caution label advising owners of the same, and ask owners to affix the label on the flat surface on the backside of the mat; We will also alert dealers of the issue, and remind them not to install mats on top of existing mats; If the owners want to have the dealer affix the label to the mat, Toyota will offer that they bring their vehicles to the dealer to ask them to do it, free of charge. However, we will NOT file a 573 (i.e. this is not a safety recall), because a) this is an ‘aftermarket’ install b) there is no design or manufacturing defect in the mat or vehicle, and c) the issue really boils down to improper installation of the mats by the owner or the dealer (but I noted that Toyota has no evidence that dealers are actually doing this.) Ms. Demeter said that there is precedent in NHTSA’s history for safety recalls in this area, but understood our idea she pledged that they would discuss it internally and get back to me with a response to our proposal in a few days. She also insured me that NHTSA would not open a formal PE until she gets back to me.”

Toyota also acknowledged that before it launched the first, limited floor mat recall in September 2007, it had initiated some sort of a floor mat campaign for its European customers in July. Little is publicly known about what Toyota calls a “field action.” Under the TREAD ACT, manufacturers must report an overseas safety recall or “other safety campaign in a foreign country on a motor vehicle or motor vehicle equipment that is identical or substantially similar to a motor vehicle or motor vehicle equipment offered for sale in the United States.”  There is no evidence in the public record that Toyota did reported this floor mat “field action” to NHTSA prior to disclosing it in TQ10-001.

In the ensuing two years, the cycle repeated itself. According to the chronology, Toyota reported having received only two more complaints. (SRS is aware of a January 2008 crash involving floor-mat entrapment in a Lexus ES350, which occurred on a Connecticut highway. This crash was reported to Toyota. It was noted on one of Toyota’s quarterly EWRs, but it is not one of the complaints mentioned in the chronology.)

After the Saylor crash spotlighted Toyota’s SUA problems, the automaker again ramped up a response. The very public loss of life, involving a California Highway Patrol officer caught Toyota’s attention in a way eight previous NHTSA investigations did not.

In a September 2009 e-mail from Toyota’s Koji Sakekibara to his colleagues underscored the delicate position in which the automaker found itself:

“In light of the information that two minutes before the crash, an occupant made a call to 911 telling that the accelerator pedal was stuck and the vehicle would not stop, I think that the Body Engineering Division should act proactively first, (investigate issues such as whether the accelerator assay is the cause, how to secure floor mats, the timing of introducing shape improvements.) Furthermore, taking into account the circumstances that in this event a police officer and his entire family TMS-PQSS Public Affairs Group thinks that the NHTSA and the USA public already hold very harsh opinions in regards to Toyota (As I think you know, in some cases in the USA killing a police officer means the death penalty.”)

This time, the internal assessment took other solutions into account: “Toyota conducted various analyses to evaluate the emergency shutdown method of Toyota vehicles and competitor vehicles, to evaluate the brake override system of competitor vehicles, to evaluate the accelerator pedal shape change to reduce the risk of pedal entrapment by floor mats, and to compare the shift levers of Toyota vehicles with competitor vehicle,” Toyota wrote in its chronology.  After initially advising owners to remove the All-Weather Floor Mats from their vehicles, Toyota issued a second-phase response, which included a brake-to-idle override for some models, and newly designed floor mats for all vehicles under the recall.

The chronology admitted to no virtually internal evidence of a problem over a four-year period. Was Toyota suggesting that consumer complaints, early warning reports and legal and warranty claims had no role in driving their recall decisions? Did Toyota expect the experienced ODI staff to accept the explanation that on the basis of two field reports, Toyota initiated a stop sale? Based on Toyota’s EWRs, NHTSA opened at least five Death and Injury inquiries on incidents in which floor mat entrapment was alleged. Toyota did not mention any on these incidents in its chronology.

The outline of events cast Toyota’s floor mat recall campaigns in September 2007 and October 2009 as rear-guard actions, driven by NHTSA or other externalities. While the agency investigation is in the preliminary evaluation stage, the automaker conducts pedal entrapment analyses in an Avalon and Prius in relation to pedal geometry and the All-Weather floor mat, and finds nothing wrong. Once NHTSA elevates the investigation to the engineering analysis stage, Toyota decides to conduct a floor mat recall in September 2007.

In conclusion: Toyota claimed to have practically no complaints about floor mat interference; it only acted in March 2007 to shut down ODI; it initiated a floor mat “field action” in the European market sometime in July 2007, two months before the automaker announced a recall in the U.S.

Ding!

Why Toyota Was Late in Recalling Defective Relay Rods

The relay rod recall chronology was much less tortured. In October 2004, the automaker disclosed to NHTSA that it had recalled Hilux and Hilux Surf vehicles sold in Japan for defective relay rods – but not its U.S. counterparts, Toyota 4Runner, the Toyota Truck and Toyota T100. The rods had a tendency to snap, leaving the driver with no steering controls. But Toyota blamed it on driving conditions unique to the Japanese market:

“TMC has received field information from the Japanese market, but no similar information from the U.S. market has been received. In addition to the different steering linkage design between the right hand drive and the left hand drive vehicles, TMC believes that the unique operation conditions in Japan, such as frequent standing full lock turns, such as for narrow parking spaces and close quarters maneuvering, greatly affects the occurrence of this problem.”

The Hilux recall was a scandal in Japan; with police referring three Toyota executives for criminal prosecution. Top managers avoided jail time. Instead, the Japanese government publicly criticized Toyota and ordered the company to reform its recall practices.

Back in the U.S., Toyota told NHTSA that it had not received any reports of relay rod failures.

Here’s one of those complaints the automaker didn’t receive in 2004, as reported among its 2004 EWR data:

The driver, Zoe Chapman of Whitethorn, CA, was driving her T-100 truck at about 20 mph near Humboldt Redwoods State Park, when she lost steering. The truck climbed an embankment and rolled over. Chapman and her passengers were belted and escaped with minor injuries, but the truck was totaled. Immediately after the crash, Chapman and her passengers saw that the relay rod was severed at a line of rust. They happened to be professional and accomplished photographers who made an on-the-spot visual record of the evidence. Toyota looked at the same facts and decided that the relay rod broke as a result of the rollover and told Chapman to pound sand.

On September 6, 2005, Toyota finally recalled the defective steering relay rods on 977, 839 1989-1995 Toyota pick ups and 4Runners in the U.S. The repair rate was so low, Toyota took the unusual step of issuing an owner re-notification, but it came too late for 18-year-old Michael “Levi” Stewart of Idaho, who died in a September 2007, after the relay rod on his 1991 Toyota pickup fractured. The Stewart family received a recall notice two months later.

Attorney John Kristensen, who represents the Stewart family, did some digging and discovered that Toyota had actually received at least 44 reports in the U.S. since as early as 2000, including crashes involving rollovers and injuries, plus a bunch of warranty claims. In May, Kristensen called on NHTSA to open a Timeliness Query for the relay rod recall, which it did.

In conclusion: In 2004, Toyota recalls vehicles in Japan for broken relay rods, but not in the U.S.; Toyota lies to the agency and claims it has no reports of relay rod failures in the U.S.; Toyota recalls U.S. vehicles with broken relay rods one year later.

Ding! Ding!

In total, Toyota paid $48.8 million in timeliness fines – a slight wobble on their $2.2 billion bottom line. Individual drivers and passengers paid for that delay – in economic losses, and in some cases, with their lives.

Update Report: Toyota Sudden Unintended Acceleration

Today, the automaker released – via a statement to the Tokyo Stock Exchange – the news that a federal grand jury in New York had subpoenaed the company on June 29 for documents regarding relay rod failures.

Toyota said:  “The company and our subsidiaries will cooperate with the investigation with sincerity.”

So far, Toyota is the only one saying much of anything. Attorney John Kristensen, who represents the family of an Idaho man who died in a 2007 crash related to a relay rod-failure, and who alerted the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to Toyota’s delay in recalling the defective components, says he can’t comment on any grand jury proceedings. The agency says that Secretary Ray LaHood had nothing to do with the subpoena to Toyota and referred all questions to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

But the dots connect rather nicely.

In May, the agency opened a Timeliness Query (at Kristensen’s request) into Recall 05V389 to replace defective steering relay rods in Toyota pickups and 4Runners, based on a one-year leg between a U.S. and Japanese recall for the same component in a sister vehicle sold overseas.

In October 2004, the automaker disclosed to NHTSA that it had recalled Hilux and Hilux Surf vehicles sold in Japan for defective relay rods – but not its U.S. counterparts, Toyota 4Runner, the Toyota Truck and Toyota T100. The rods had a tendency to snap, leaving the driver with no steering controls. But Toyota blamed it on driving conditions unique to the Japanese market:

“TMC has received field information from the Japanese market, but no similar information from the U.S. market has been received. In addition to the different steering linkage design between the right hand drive and the left hand drive vehicles, TMC believes that the unique operation conditions in Japan, such as frequent standing full lock turns, such as for narrow parking spaces and close quarters maneuvering, greatly affects the occurrence of this problem.”

(The Hilux recall was a scandal in Japan; with police referring three Toyota executives for criminal prosecution. Top managers avoided jail time. Instead, the Japanese government publicly criticized Toyota and ordered the company to reform its recall practices.)

On September 6, 2005, Toyota finally recalled the defective steering relay rods on 977,839 1989-1995 Toyota pick ups and 4Runners in the U.S. The repair rate was so low, Toyota took the unusual step of issuing an owner re-notification, but it came too late for 18-year-old Michael “Levi” Stewart of Idaho, who died in a September 2007, after the relay rod on his 1991 Toyota pickup fractured. The Stewart family received a recall notice two months later.

Kristensen, an attorney with The O’Reilly||Collins Law Firm, found, in the course of litigation, that Toyota’s claim in October 2004 that it had no reports of relay rod failures in the U.S. was false. Toyota had actually received at least 44 reports in the U.S. since as early as 2000, including crashes involving rollovers and injuries.

“We think that it’s fairly obvious,” Kristensen said. “The documents and the evidence speak for themselves. We’ve had numerous people testify that they lost their steering 2004, prior to the recall in the United States. And Toyota has known since 1992, 1993 that they were having problems in the U.S. with relay rods.”

“Just as a curious lawyer, I’m wondering if this prosecution is under 49 U.S.C. 30170. That’s the real question.”

Currently, Toyota is trying to quash Kristensen’s subpoena to depose one of the three company execs recommended for prosecution in Japan.

“It now it appears we know why,” he says.

Section 30170(a)(1) of the TREAD Act establishes criminal liability for a “person who violates section 1001 of title 18 with respect to the reporting requirements of [49 U.S.C.] section 30166, with the specific intention of misleading the Secretary with respect to motor vehicle or motor vehicle equipment safety related defects that have caused death or serious bodily injury to an individual. . . .”

The rule set a pretty high bar for criminal prosecution, requiring the guilty party to have “knowingly and willfully” concealed facts or made false statements. The “safe harbor” provision lets the auto executive off the hook, if, at the time of the violation, such person does not know that the violation would result in an accident causing death or serious bodily injury; and (2) the person corrects any improper reports or failure to report within a reasonable time. The Final Rule adopted in July 2001 designated 30 days as the “reasonable” time period for a reporter to come forward and correct any false reports.

NHTSA itself opined: “We believe that there will be very few criminal prosecutions under section 30170, given its elements.”

The loopholes made advocates like Joan Claybrook, president emeritus of Public Citizen, cranky in the extreme. In her June 2004 testimony before the Senate Committee on Competition, Foreign Commerce and infrastructure, she complained:

“In short, while the section increases the rarely-applied maximum penalty for a violation of federal law concerning reports made to the government, at the same time it completely undercuts this new authority by prohibiting application of criminal penalties if the person who lied eventually recants. Because prosecutors always retain the ability to grant immunity, and to place case-specific limits on that immunity for witnesses or participants to secure testimony, the broad language of the “safe harbor” provision creates a much larger window for illegal activity than existed under current law. In addition, this law requires a request from the DOT to the Justice Department prior to prosecution, a highly unusual potential pitfall for enforcement of any criminal liability.”

So, did LaHood request the DOJ to make the case? Toyota’s already earned the ignominious distinction of paying the largest NHTSA fine ever, for its delay in recalling millions of vehicles with sticky pedals. Could Toyota, the world’s Ichiban automaker, claim another first?

“Toyota remains confident that our electronic throttle control system is not a cause of unintended acceleration. Toyota and Lexus vehicles are inherently designed so that a real world uncommanded acceleration of the vehicle cannot occur. This is achieved by a redundant system design with dual computers and sensors as well as by robust fail safe architecture. We test our vehicles extensively to make sure that the fail safes and redundancies work. Indeed, Toyota’s ETCS-i has been subjected to comprehensive testing over more than a decade without a single unintended acceleration event. Toyota has never discovered or been provided with any evidence that the ETCS-i can cause unintended acceleration in a real world scenario,” James Lentz averred in his written testimony.

Oh, Jim, Jim, Jim, where do we begin?

We’ll start with: “Toyota and Lexus vehicles are inherently designed so that a real world uncommanded acceleration of the vehicle cannot occur.”

Stacy Stuhrenberg begs to differ. On February 11, the Goodlettsville, TN woman was almost at a complete stop at a traffic light on Long Hollow Pike, when the light changed. Stuhrenberg gave a little gas to her 2004 Sienna to proceed through the light, when the vehicle accelerated in a burst of speed.

“It was like if you slap a horse on the bottom – it just shot off,” she recalled.

Although Stuhrenberg depressed the brakes as hard as she could, she rear-ended another vehicle. Toyota hired an outside technician from Goodlettsville Collision to examine her vehicle. Stacey’s husband witnessed the visual inspection of the brakes and accelerator pedal. No electronic vehicle diagnostics were performed.

On May 6, Toyota sent Stuhrenberg a ding letter affirming that her floor mats were secured and the accelerator pedal functioned properly: “We are very sorry to hear about the unfortunate incident; however, our inspection determined that this incident was not a result of any type of manufacture design or defect. Thank you for allowing us to address your concerns.” Click on the image below to read the letter.

(State Farm finally agreed to total her vehicle and go after Toyota and subrogate the claim.)

Tim Kenkel of Denver, Co. would also dispute Toyota’s contention that uncommanded acceleration can not occur in the real world.

Kenkel experienced two incidents in his 2008 Rav4 Limited Edition in 15 minutes. Kenkel was also at a stop light with his foot on the brake, when all of a sudden, the engine revved into redline territory. Kenkel was able to keep the vehicle from moving forward and put the vehicle into neutral. The Rav4 engine continued to rev. Kenkel “slammed it into park,” and turned the engine off. He re-started the vehicle five minutes later, but upon ignition, the engine went immediately to wide-open throttle.

“Every light on the dash board was blinking like a Christmas tree,” he recalled

Kenkel killed the engine again and waited another ten minutes before starting his vehicle up again. The engine behaved normally this time, so he proceeded to the Go Toyota Scion Arapahoe dealership in Centennial. By the day’s end, the dealership called and swore it had subjected the vehicle to a battery of tests and found nothing wrong with the vehicle.

It was your floor mat, they told him.

When Kenkel returned to the dealership to ask for the copies of tests, the staff finally confessed that they had performed a visual inspection of the driver’s side foot well – and nothing else. Kenkel insisted they run a diagnostic on the electronics. Lo and behold, the ECM reported five Diagnostic Trouble Codes in the chassis, the network and electrical systems. ACTION REQUIRED, according to the diagnostic report.

Kenkel says that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Vehicle Research and Test Center is buying his Rav4 for the value of his loan — $29,000.

Maybe you aren’t finding any problems, Jim, because you aren’t looking for them.

In Toyota’s alternate-reality world, the complaints boil down to:

• Vehicles that have not yet received the floor mat entrapment or sticking accelerator pedal remedy.




• Cases requiring an explanation of vehicle characteristics where an increase in engine speed is normal, such as higher engine idle speed after a cold start, a slight increase in engine RPM when the air conditioning compressor cycles on, or a slight surge when the vehicle accelerates to the set speed once the cruise control is engaged.




• Concerns or questions about slight differences in the driving experience following a driveability programming update while the adaptive memory adjusts to the wear of certain components and their current operating characteristics

• The presence of double- or triple-stacked floor mats

• Dissatisfaction with the feel of the accelerator pedal after the reinforcement bar remedy was fitted to address th potential for sticking pedals (in which case a new pedal was installed); and

• In rare cases, vehicles that were not correctly remedied during a recall.

According to Quality Control Systems Corp, which has been closely monitoring post-recall complaints, at least 155 incidents of SUA have been reported to NHTSA in which the owner claims the vehicle was repaired under a company recall.

Here are some events happening in the real world:

ODI# 10320934

Attn: Defects Investigations Office. 2007 Toyota Camry with 38721 miles that is owned by and used as an undercover police vehicle accelerated without explanation on March 10, 2010. The operator, who is a sworn officer, advises that his foot was not on the accelerator and the vehicle increased in speed and engine revolutions without explanation. The event occurred over the course of approximately 1/10th of a mile reaching speeds just over 60 mph. The acceleration event corrected itself. There was no injury or crash associated with the event. The vehicle in question had completed a Toyota recall service program # ssc90l to address acceleration issues with this model vehicle on March 2, 2010. The vehicle was returned to the Henrico police on March 3, 2010. The extremely short period of time between the recall service and this sudden unanticipated acceleration event gives reason to believe that the recall service was not effective in correcting the acceleration issues associated with Toyota brand vehicles. The vehicle was parked shortly after the event and is currently secured by the Henrico police. The vehicle has not been driven or examined by any parties since the occurrence of this acceleration event. In light of the fact that this vehicle had recently completed the required acceleration recall service and has been secured since the date of the occurrence, this agency believes that this vehicle is an ideal candidate for examination by the office of defects investigations to determine the origin of this unanticipated acceleration event. The vehicle in question is outfitted with Toyota brand floor mats which are tethered to anchors in the floorboard of the vehicle.

ODI # 10329268

The contact owns a 2009 Toyota Camry. The owner stated that the vehicle was taken to Toyota for recall NHTSA campaign id number: 10V017000 and the remedy was performed. Approximately three months later while his wife was operating the vehicle and pulling into a parking lot, at approximately 4 MPH, to park the vehicle accelerated without driver intent. It crashed through a plate glass window and continued on and crashed in to a wall inside the building and was still attempting to accelerate. The vehicle was put into neutral then into drive and the driver was finally able to get the vehicle turned off. No injuries were reported. The Houston police responded and took a report #064969310-p. The vehicle was towed by a city approved towing company and is currently at a impound lot. The insurance company is sending an adjuster to inspect the vehicle. The failure and current mileage is approximately 50,000. Rd

ODI# 10328848

While driver was pulling into a parking space and coming to a near stop, the vehicle, a 2008 Toyota Camry, suddenly accelerated on its own accord, hopping the concrete curb, accelerating the vehicle as the car crashed struck and pushed along a trash bin, thru thick brush, a steel gated fence and eventually striking a tree where the vehicle finally came to rest. The driver attempted to stop the vehicle by applying both feet to the brakes as it traveled approximately 150 feet. The vehicle was subject to both the floor mat and acceleration pedal recalls which were repaired on February 11, 2010. This incident was post-recall repair. Since the incident, the vehicle has not been repaired and is currently being stored by an autobody repair facility and awaits inspection by NHTSA and Toyota. *tr

These are but a few of the rare cases in which uncommanded acceleration cannot occur.

This regulation, enacted as part of the Transportation Recall Enhancement Accountability and Documentation Act with great speed and good intentions, has had its share of problems. There was the four-year battle over what information would be public. (The agency and safety advocates envisioned a largely public data system; the manufacturers had an entirely different idea. Guess who won?). Then there has been the suggestion that EWR has not actually been useful as a statistical canary in a coalmine. Now we’re going to have to raise a few questions about coding.Remember, this is self-reported data. Thanks to a tip from Randy and Alice Whitfield at Quality Control Systems we took a look-see at one of Toyota’s EWR reports regarding a claim filed against the automaker in a 2004 rollover crash. The driver, Zoe Chapman of Whitethorn, CA, was driving her T-100 truck at about 20 mph near Humboldt Redwoods State Park, when she lost steering. The truck climbed an embankment and rolled over. Chapman and her passengers were belted and escaped with minor injuries, but the truck was totaled. Immediately after the crash, Chapman and her passengers saw that the relay rod was severed at a line of rust. They happened to be professional and accomplished photographers who made an on-the-spot visual record of the evidence. Toyota looked at the same facts and decided that the relay rod broke as a result of the rollover and told Chapman to pound sand.

You might be scratching your head at this point, thinking: Didn’t I just read something about Toyota and defective relay rods?

You did! NHTSA just opened a new Timeliness Query to determine why Toyota recalled this very component in its Japanese truck models in 2004, but waited an entire year before it decided to grace American consumers with the repair. In fact, Toyota had told NHTSA that it was not necessary to recall the relay rods in the U.S., in part, because they had no reports of problems here.

Back to EWR. Toyota reported this claim to NHTSA, but it was coded as a rollover and powertrain- related claim.

Rollover? True. Powertrain? Nuh-uh. Where’s a reference to steering? Steering is coded 01 and Powertrain is 10.

Honest mistake? Deliberate obfuscation?

We can not answer these questions. One thing we can surmise – the data quality isn’t being checked. Regardless of the manufacturer’s opinion of what caused a crash, the law requires it to report it to EWR as it was reported to the automaker. And we quote from Compendium for Motor Vehicles having an Annual Production of 500 or more Vehicles Early Warning Reporting:  “When a claim or notice identifies or alleges any system or component as a possible contributing factor in the incident, the system(s) or component(s) are to be reported using the applicable component code as defined in the EWR regulation.”

We don’t know if “honest” really describes Toyota. But they sure are consistent.

Today, Kristensen, an attorney with The O’Reilly||Collins Law Firm asked NHTSA administration to launch a Timeliness Query into Recall 05V389 to replace defective steering relay rods in Toyota pickups and 4Runners.

(And the thud you just heard was that other shoe dropping we mentioned back in October. See Troubles Mount in Toyotaville.)

According to a chronology of the sticking CTS accelerator pedals campaigns, Toyota launched a silent recall for the in UK and Ireland in June 2009, followed by a full EU Technical Service Bulletin in September. Toyota didn’t announce a U.S. recall of the same component until January 21, 2010. Toyota said that the UK and Ireland got the fix first, due to the unique combination of the British weather and the right-hand drive configuration:

“The trend that emerged in the judgment of these personnel was that the phenomenon seemed to occur during the winter in circumstances of high humidity in right hand drive models (in the U.K. and Ireland). TMC personnel had reproduced the phenomenon in April 2009, first on a recovered part and then in a laboratory setting using a full vehicle. In June 2009, the phenomenon was replicated in a test drive at TMC’s Reliability Testing Group. The collective thinking was that condensation, along with wear of the friction lever assembly, likely caused accelerator pedal sticking and that the phenomenon occurred in right hand drive vehicles because the heater duct outputs directly towards the accelerator pedal, causing condensation inside the colder pedal assembly,” Toyota said in a submission to NHTSA’s TQ10-002.

This was an explanation Toyota had had some success with in the past. In October 2004, the automaker disclosed to NHTSA that it had recalled Hilux and Hilux Surf vehicles sold in Japan for defective relay rods – but not its U.S. counterparts, Toyota 4Runner, the Toyota Truck and Toyota T100. The rods had a tendency to snap, leaving the driver with no steering controls. But Toyota blamed it on driving conditions unique to the Japanese market:

“TMC has received field information from the Japanese market, but no similar information from the U.S. market has been received. In addition to the different steering linkage design between the right hand drive and the left hand drive vehicles, TMC believes that the unique operation conditions in Japan, such as frequent standing full lock turns, such as for narrow parking spaces and close quarters maneuvering, greatly affects the occurrence of this problem.”

On September 6, 2005, Toyota finally recalled the defective steering relay rods on 977, 839 1989-1995 Toyota pick ups and 4Runners in the U.S.

In the course of litigation, Kristensen found out that Toyota’s claim in October 2004 that it had no reports of relay rod failures in the U.S. was false. Toyota had actually received at least 44 reports in the U.S. since as early as 2000, including crashes involving rollovers and injuries – not to mention a slew of warranty repairs for broken relay rods. And Toyota’s U.S. recall resulted in an unusually low 30 percent return rate.  In 2007, the company issued an even more unusual recall re-notification, fearing NHTSA would notice that so few consumers had gotten the fix.  All of this was too late for 18-year-old Levi Stewart of Idaho, who was killed in a crash caused by a relay rod failure in September 2007. Stewart had bought the used vehicle months earlier.  Stewart’s family received the recall re-notification weeks after Levi’s death.

The only difference between the relay rod campaign and the accelerator pedal recall? So far, in the latter case, Toyota has gotten away with waiting a year before giving American consumer relief.