Remember last week when Toyota coughed up $17.35 million for "the single highest civil penalty amount ever paid to NHTSA for violations stemming from a recall"? That was chump change compared to Toyota's next payout. In a press release posted yesterday, the world's best-selling automaker has agreed...Read More»
Back in June, Toyota added the 2010 Lexus RX to a long list of vehicles that were recalled due to problems with accelerator pedals sticking beneath floor mats. That was unusual because Toyota launched the recall more than two years earlier, in the winter of 2010. To the National Highway Traffic...Read More»
Remember the Toyota recall fiasco of 2010? Apparently, it's not over yet -- at least not for investors. They filed a lawsuit against the automaker at the height of the crisis, and now, nearly three years later, Toyota has agreed to compensate them to the tune of $25.5 million. According to Detroit...Read More»
Toyota said this morning it would conduct a "voluntary safety recall" of another 2.17 million vehicles in the United States to modify accelerator pedals that could get trapped by floor mats or carpets. The company has already recalled more than 11 million vehicles to fix related safety problems...Read More»
So-called 'sudden acceleration' has a long and unfortunate history, almost destroying Audi sales in the mid-1980s after 60 Minutes accused the Audi 5000 of accelerating out of control at random. Now, as previewed a few weeks ago, an NHTSA report finds no electronic cause for the phenomenon--and...Read More»
Despite ominous news reports of cars careening out of control, there's no substitute for data. And now it looks like many reported cases of so-called "sudden acceleration" in Toyotas are actually due to driver error. That's the preliminary conclusion coming from investigators at the National...Read More»
![BP logo, reimagined [via Greenpeace UK]](https://static.hgmsites.net/images/cache/bp-logo-reimagined-via-greenpeace-uk_100314697_151x113.jpg "Great News For Toyota: People Hate BP More!"){kind=logo}
Toyota probably isn't the happiest place to work right now. Apart from the automaker's ongoing recall fiasco, Toyota took a nose dive in J.D. Power's recent Initial Quality survey (from 7th in 2009 to 21st in 2010), and at least one person at the UAW is trying to incite his followers to boycott the...Read More»
Toyota's troubles with so-called sudden acceleration are so well publicized, we're not going to run them down here. But we'd remind the world's largest carmaker that it might be far worse. As well as sticky accelerator pedals and ill-fitting floor mats, they could also be facing cars that...Read More»
So-called "sudden acceleration" is an ugly mix of media frenzy, sophisticated engineering, and complex human-machine interaction. But recent data on Toyota sudden-acceleration complaints seems to show--with some qualifiers--that the bulk of the incidents ending in fatalities have been reported by...Read More»
Sometimes you see something you just can't believe. And yet, there it is in cold type (or warm electrons). Today's candidate is a single sentence by Washington Post writers Peter Whoriskey and Frank Ahrens, discussing the Congressional investigation of the National Highway Traffic Safety...Read More»
Toyota president and CEO Akio Toyoda has changed his mind and agreed to testify before the U.S. Congress next Wednesday on the escalating series of safety issues and vehicle recalls that have dominated media and damaged the brand. As we've detailed, Toyota's response has been slow and in some cases...Read More»
Earlier this week, TCC editor Marty Padgett saw a commercial touting the quality of Ford vehicles and how they're built better than Toyotas or Hondas. Given that Ford recently launched an incentive program to woo Toyota owners worried about the company's current recall fiasco, we thought this was...Read More»
When it rains, it pours. And Toyota may find itself swimming a lot faster if new allegations of safety problems prove to be true. In Japan this morning, the Ministry of Transportation ordered the company to investigate complaints into brake problems in its new 2010 Toyota Prius. More than 100 U.S...Read More»
Own a Toyota or Lexus vehicle and not even sure if or how it's affected by the recent massive recall efforts? Looking back at the headlines of recent weeks and months—especially in this era of fast-moving, encapsulated news—it's easy to be confused over what's happened and what cars are...Read More»
Whether or not so-called "sudden acceleration" problems involve issues with floor mats, operator confusion over pedals, or actual vehicle defects, several automakers rank far above others in terms of complaints made to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Toyota has many more...Read More»
Toyota announced today that it would recall 3.8 million of its vehicles to replace the accelerator pedals, to alleviate once and for all any chance of uncontrolled acceleration from the pedal being trapped by ill-fitting floor mats. While it develops new pedal designs, Toyota will have its dealers...Read More»
What do you do if your accelerator pedal does become stuck? That's what a tragic California accident in August and the ensuing massive ongoing Toyota recall—of floor mats that can wedge the pedal at or near the floor—has people wondering. Enter Consumer Reports, which tested some potential exit...Read More»
In a move almost too strange to be fiction, Toyota is apparently advising its Toyota and Lexus brand dealers to zip tie loose floor mats to the seats in the 3.8 million vehicles affected by the recent safety recall. Of course, it's phrased much more eloquently than that. "We have reviewed with the...Read More»
