The head of Toyota Akio Toyoda (is that his real name?) apologizes for the factors that led up to the total Toyota recall of the 8 models where sticking pedals on its cars have caused death.
In Japan its all about saving face which in this case is saving the brand from dire consequences. The problem is that it took Toyota a long time to fix the problem trying to avoid a recall and panic buyers. Of course they are aware that shares in the Toyota company went down and they had to do something fast.
Toyota Recall still a Mystery
Although some Toyota buyers are leery of Toyota gas petal problems some who purchased cars before the recall have returned them to the dealerships. Was it the bonuses that GM and Ford were offering to customers while Toyota was not producing cars or was it some influence of the Safety Administration.
In just a day since the recall and totally shutting down the production lines of its cars Toyota has come up with a plan for fixing the gas pedal problem which accelerates the car without notice and without stopping. The NHSA -National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have reviewed Toyota’s proposal for preventing gas pedal acceleration and have approved the plan.
Toyota recalled 5.6 million cars in the USA including the luxury Lexus, 2 million in Europe and only 75, 000 cars in China. The interesting question is why were all the cars recalled in the United States and only 75,000 in China which has a larger amount of cars and they recalled fewer cars. Does this mean the more faulty cars were sold to the US market? This has not been explained or investigated by the US
Also in Europe the Peugeot Citroen was also named for 100,000 cars made at the same factory in the Czech Republic where Toyota and Citroen share a car factory for both their vehicles. But it seems the US government is just as anxious to get Toyota making cars again as it was to take over General Motors. Perhaps the states where Toyota employs thousands of people
?The source of the gas problem has not been disclosed as to why the vehicles speed up but the fix is a far cheaper one than investigating the onboard computers. The remedy is being quickly made by the CTS corporation who are manufacturing a makeshift shim which is actually a spacer. IT will be place in the accelerator to keep it from sticking.
The NHTSA are not required to say they approve the fix but they can reject Toyota’s fix and say it is not enough which it has not done. Now Toyota can continue to sell cars as it temporarily stopped making its own vehicles due to the recall. This seems like a quick fix for the runaway Toyota cars and long term the buyers will have to take this under advisement.
Some Comments from our Viewers
Customers of cars recalled should be monetarily compensated for inconvenience and stress.
Shims /Skims… We need to know exactly what the problem was/is and when Toyota KNEW they had a problem. This issue has irked me from day 1, when I heard the feeble floor mats excuse..
I use the Camry 2008 manufactured in Australia and shipped to Oman (middle east). This news article has made me quite uneasy.
TAGS: Toyota Recall, Toyota recall fix, Toyota cars, Toyota shims the accelerator, Toyota Runaway cars, Toyota halts production of cars, General Motors, car industry news, business news.
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
I believe this affects older cars like 2005 Camry although in my experience the accelerator pedal has to be pressed harder for speed. Think about it as a solution to existing recalls but it affects performance. Not sure what to believe.