Toyota in the news again.

dekuda

Looks like more recalls for Toyota:eek:

http://www.comcast.net/articles/finance/20100701/AS.Japan.Toyota/

Jstas

In case Comcast's sucktastic site causes issues for you:

http://www.autoblog.com/2010/07/01/breaking-toyota-admits-270-000-cars-have-faulty-engines-worldwi/

MacLeod

Wow!

I heard one of the Toyota big wigs say a few months back that they were so focused on becoming the biggest car manufacturer that they lost sight of what got them there namely their quality.

Kinda why I like Honda. Theyre not trying to take over the world. They seem happy with their few models and bulletproof build quality.

cnh

I own two cars...a Chevy and a Toyota and when you're an owner all this news does make you a tad nervous....especially when you have a 'friend' driving your car for the year you are 'away'! But in this case...I guess it's mostly Lexus...and I certainly cannot afford those.

cnh

Danny Tse

NHTSA points to driver error in Toyota "sudden acceleration" debacle....

Driver error cited as cause of fatal crashes in 74 of 75 cases

Toyota, once lavished with praise for its reputation for quality and reliability, took more than a few blows to the chin earlier this year due to concerns of sudden acceleration. The company began recalling many of its popular models – including the Camry, Tundra, Corolla, Highlander, and RAV4 – to replace “sticky” gas pedals.

However, after examining data from 75 fatal crashes which were blamed on “sudden acceleration” due to faulty electronics, the National Highway and Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) has come to the conclusion that only one incident was not related to driver error. The incident in question is the high profile crash involving a CHP officer driving a 2009 Lexus ES 350. The vehicle accelerated uncontrollably due to improperly installed floor mats which trapped the accelerator pedal. The crash resulted in the death of four people including the officer.

The NHTSA concluded that the other 74 crashes were a result of driver error -- specifically, drivers were mistaking the accelerator pedal for the brake pedal, according to the Wall Street Journal.

"In spite of our investigations, we have not actually been able yet to find a defect" with Toyota's electronic throttle control said NHTSA associate administrator for enforcement, Daniel Smith.

"We're bound and determined that if it exists we're going to find it. But as yet, we haven't found it."

The NHTSA hasn't completely cleared Toyota, however. The agency still notes that improperly designed floor mats and sticky accelerators that were slow to return to the idle were to blame for some crashes. Toyota itself acknowledged these finding back in January. However, phantom electronic gremlins causing Toyota vehicles to suddenly lose their minds appears to have been tossed out of the equation.

The sudden acceleration drama resulted in the U.S. Department of Transportation fining Toyota $16.4 million for deceiving officials about the widespread nature of stick accelerator pedals. There are also over 100 pending lawsuits against Toyota regarding sudden acceleration.

Also, Toyota may be planning for the return of the Supra

brettw22

I could understand a few people being stupid and getting the pedals mixed up in a frantic moment, but not the overwhelming majority of people.....

I know when a car is moving on it's own in Cruise control....I'm pretty sure I can differentiate between my foot causing the car speeding up and my foot not causing it........

FTGV

So does that mean Toyota gets a refund on their $16.4 million fine?

Polkersince85

You could buy a lot of Toyotas if you had bought stock when it tanked. Same with BP. I think there is some major stock manipulation going on. Find it-trash it- tank it- buy it- praise it- sell it. Who's next.

Jstas

FTGV wrote: »

So does that mean Toyota gets a refund on their $16.4 million fine?

They were fined because they failed to report their complaints and findings to the authorities in a timely manner.

Jstas

Oh and a new Supra is a pipe dream at best.

PhantomOG

brettw22 wrote: »

I could understand a few people being stupid and getting the pedals mixed up in a frantic moment, but not the overwhelming majority of people.....

I know when a car is moving on it's own in Cruise control....I'm pretty sure I can differentiate between my foot causing the car speeding up and my foot not causing it........

I can easily believe 74 people out of the millions of Toyota owners could make that mistake. It seems like their are news stories all the time of people (particularly old people) making this mistake and plowing their car through a some store front.

concealer404

Hrmmm... i believe a few of us were calling driver error from the beginning.

"This Guy!!!!!" being one of them.

Interesting that articles are pointing to the old Audi 5000 debacle, which ended up being the same thing. People panic, their limbs act differently than their brains want them to, and they hit the wrong pedal. Not that hard to believe.

This article:

http://www.thecarconnection.com/marty-blog/1047137_drivers-at-fault-in-so-called-sudden-acceleration-toyotas-nhtsa-says

States that only ONE of over 3,000 cases were concluded with the vehicle being at fault.

AsSiMiLaTeD

brettw22 wrote: »

I could understand a few people being stupid and getting the pedals mixed up in a frantic moment, but not the overwhelming majority of people.....

I know when a car is moving on it's own in Cruise control....I'm pretty sure I can differentiate between my foot causing the car speeding up and my foot not causing it........

That's the thing though, it's not the 'overwhelming majority' of people, it's 75 incidents, out of millions of drivers that had accidents, so to think that 75 people out of millions are idiots and don't know how to drive or react isn't reaching at all, I probably encounter at least that many on the road every day

Jstas

Umm...everything I'm reading says that only a small portion of the millions of recalled vehicles where the owners said the car started accelerating while they were "pressing the brake" were found to be driver error. NHTSA states that the sticky accelerator pedal and the floor mat problems are still under investigation.

It ain't over yet. Don't go congratulating yourselves on how right you were so quick.

concealer404

Jstas wrote: »

Umm...everything I'm reading says that only a small portion of the millions of recalled vehicles where the owners said the car started accelerating while they were "pressing the brake" were found to be driver error. NHTSA states that the sticky accelerator pedal and the floor mat problems are still under investigation.

It ain't over yet. Don't go congratulating yourselves on how right you were so quick.

Sure... because they didn't investigate millions of vehicles. They investigated 3,000 vehicles that were actually reported as malfunctioning. I don't understand why they would need to investigate a vehicle that wasn't reported as malfunctioning.

There weren't millions of malfunctioning Toyotas. There were a couple thousand.

What is being said is that every single one of the vehicles where owners said the car started accelerating while they were "pressing the brake" were found to be driver error.

Except one.

Unless i'm missing a gigantic point here, that's pretty cut and dry.

AsSiMiLaTeD

I think what's in question are the fatal crashes, from reading that article posted above. People were so up in arms, "Toyota made a mistake and PEOPLE DIED!!!!!!". As I am reading it, the deaths were caused by driver error.

Jstas

They investigated the vehicles where people complained about the car accelerating while the operator claimed to be pressing the brake pedal.

There have been million of vehicles recalled to fix gas pedals and floor mats. The ones listed above are a small portion and do not cover all the deaths attributed to "sudden acceleration". There are many more being looked at for vehicles where a gas pedal stuck in the down position and did not return. This has been blamed on floor mats that impeded the pedal movement and also on throttle mechanisms that got stuck or jammed and kept the throttle open.

The only ones the above mentioned news stories refer to are the ones like where that guy was driving his Prius, claimed he couldn't stop and had to have police intervention. When the car was investigated, it was shown that he was not doing anything he said he was and his claims were fraudulent.

This does not cover the millions of Camrys, Corollas, Solaras and other Toyota and Lexus vehicles that were recalled that are affected by the claimed floor mats and accelerator problems. The NHTSA has been deliberately specific stating that.

concealer404

Jstas wrote: »

They investigated the vehicles where people complained about the car accelerating while the operator claimed to be pressing the brake pedal.

There have been million of vehicles recalled to fix gas pedals and floor mats. The ones listed above are a small portion and do not cover all the deaths attributed to "sudden acceleration". There are many more being looked at for vehicles where a gas pedal stuck in the down position and did not return. This has been blamed on floor mats that impeded the pedal movement and also on throttle mechanisms that got stuck or jammed and kept the throttle open.

The only ones the above mentioned news stories refer to are the ones like where that guy was driving his Prius, claimed he couldn't stop and had to have police intervention. When the car was investigated, it was shown that he was not doing anything he said he was and his claims were fraudulent.

This does not cover the millions of Camrys, Corollas, Solaras and other Toyota and Lexus vehicles that were recalled that are affected by the claimed floor mats and accelerator problems. The NHTSA has been deliberately specific stating that.

Right. The news stories show that of the actual complaints/claims, that being the cars that were "proven" to have issues, it was driver error in every case but one. We don't care (well, we do, but hopefully you know what i mean) about the vehicles that didn't experience issues and/or were recalled and "fixed." They didn't create accidents.

I guess i'm not quite understanding, probably just an internet interpretation problem, or i'm just slow. Probably the latter.

I think i'm just not seeing the correlation between number of vehicles recalled (not reported) and the number of vehicles reported. Are you proposing that the NHTSA should investigate all the recalled vehicles as well? Not trolling or arguing, serious question.

AsSiMiLaTeD

I don't think you're misunderstanding concealed, I'm reading the same thing you are, as is the OP and several others.

Jstas

From Autoblog:

After receiving more than 3,000 reports of sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles, the U.S. Department of Transportation has concluded that driver error was actually at fault. According to The Wall Street Journal, investigators analyzing different data recorders from Toyota vehicles found that at the time of these sudden acceleration crashes, the throttles were wide open rather and the brakes were not depressed. Thus, they have reason to believe that drivers were mistakenly stomping on the accelerator rather than slamming the brakes in an attempt to avoid these crashes.

Of the 75 fatal crashes blamed on sudden acceleration, only one incident has actually been verified as being caused by vehicle fault – the Lexus ES350 accident that killed a California highway patrolman and three other passengers last August. Even so, this case was chalked up as an incident where the floor mat trapped the gas pedal, which Toyota quickly issued a recall for.

The WSJ also reports that U.S. Transportation Department officials have stated publicly that they have yet to find any electronic glitches in Toyota vehicles that could lead to these crashes. The only defects proven to be true are those that have been outlined by Toyota itself – floor mats and sticky accelerator pedals that are slow to return to idle.

So while Toyota may not have been at fault in these sudden acceleration cases, the automaker's image has indeed been seriously tarnished over the past few months. Over eight million Toyota vehicles have been recalled worldwide – a large blemish in automotive history, and it appears that much of the hand-wringing may have been for naught. Thanks to everyone for the tips!

The sudden acceleration cases are only about 75 cases out of 3,000 complaints where there were fatalities. Those are concerning those 3,000 who stated that the vehicle accelerated by itself and they were unable to stop it to avoid a crash no matter how hard they pressed the brake pedal.

The 8 million plus cars and trucks were recalled because of floor mats that trapped gas pedals and would not allow something like cruise control to disengage or a sticky gas pedal which made the car continue under power after the driver had taken their foot off the gas pedal.

The NHTSA is still investigating the claimed gremlins and the recalls for the floor mats trapping accelerator pedals and faulty gas pedal assemblies still stand. That is also where Toyota's fines originate from. Those issues with the floor mats and gas pedal assemblies were known by Toyota long before they were reported. The NHTSA found Toyota was at fault for not only not reporting the issues in a timely manner but for attempting to hide the problems.

concealer404

Ok, so we're on the same page, just talking about two different smaller subjects within the big subject. Got it.

All i was saying was simply that the people who couldn't stop their car weren't hitting the brake pedal.

So that this:

Those are concerning those 3,000 who stated that the vehicle accelerated by itself and they were unable to stop it to avoid a crash no matter how hard they pressed the brake pedal.

Turned out to be BS. That's all we were talking about. I'm with you now, thanks for clarifying.

PhantomOG

Jstas wrote: »

The sudden acceleration cases are only about 75 cases out of 3,000 complaints where there were fatalities.

3000 complaints of sudden acceleration or 3000 complaints involving fatalities? There is a huge difference. I'm asking, I don't know.

To me reading, its just 3000 complaints of sudden acceleration, which may or may not have caused an accident, much less a fatality. If there were 3000+ fatalities, I'd be very surprised as I have not heard that quoted anywhere.

concealer404

PhantomOG wrote: »

3000 complaints of sudden acceleration or 3000 complaints involving fatalities? There is a huge difference. I'm asking, I don't know.

To me reading, its just 3000 complaints of sudden acceleration, which may or may not have caused an accident, much less a fatality. If there were 3000+ fatalities, I'd be very surprised as I have not heard that quoted anywhere.

3000 complaints, 75 fatalities.

PhantomOG

concealer404 wrote: »

3000 complaints, 75 fatalities.

duh... thanks for pointing out the obvious to me. That's what I get for reading posts but only skimming articles.

Jstas

Wow.

From Autoblog:

Report: WSJ unintended acceleration story "planted" by Toyota
by Damon Lavrinc (RSS feed) on Jul 15th 2010 at 11:28AM

When The Wall Street Journal reported that crash data obtained by the U.S. Department of Transportation pegged the blame for Toyota's unintended acceleration on drivers, one line stuck out:

"A NHTSA spokeswoman declined to comment on the findings, which haven't been released by the agency."

With no official word from the DOT or NHTSA on its findings in the case, the WSJ's sources have been called into question.

According to an unnamed NHTSA spokeswomen speaking with Just-Auto, "The story was planted by Toyota. Toyota is the source – yes we know that for definite [sic]. It is [the] Toyota PR machine. We knew they were going to put it out."

There's no doubt Toyota is in close contact with the DOT and NHTSA, so there's a good chance that Toyota has been privy to the findings ahead of their official release. However, until something official comes down from the Feds, the exact causes of unintended acceleration aren't simply open and shut.

We're in the process of contacting both NHTSA and Toyota about the story and will update you as more information is collected.

UPDATE: A NHTSA spokesperson has confirmed that the agency hasn't released any information to the WSJ, but declined to comment if Toyota has gained advanced access to the agency's findings.

UPDATE 2: A report by the Detroit Free Press quotes NHTSA Administrator David Strickland as saying that the agency has "several more months of work" to complete before it can definitively come to a conclusion on the cause of unintended acceleration.

UPDATE 3: We've asked Toyota's National Manager for Environmental, Quality, and Safety Communications, John Hanson, if NHTSA has been supplying information to Toyota on its investigation. His response: "It's been a one-way valve [to NHTSA]. We've been supplying information and sending it to NHTSA. We are not aware of any study. We are not aware of any report. We've been compiling our own field reports on unintended acceleration and as we investigate them, we send them to NHTSA. The WSJ report was news to us."

http://www.autoblog.com/2010/07/15/report-wsj-unintended-acceleration-story-planted-by-toyota/

The original story is from Just-Auto.com but they are a subscription site. You can go there if you want but you can't see the article unless you sign up.

http://www.just-auto.com/news/nhtsa_id105109.aspx

concealer404

I'm just going to go ahead and start making a supply of tin foil hats for the inevitable conversation that will follow.

Before that starts, i'd like to say one thing: Yes, Toyota screwed up again, from a PR perspective, and they fail because of it. I say that now, because upcoming discussion will likely label me as a "Toyota leghumper." I am anything but.

AsSiMiLaTeD

A bunch of 'he said, she said'.

Everybody is too quick to jump on these things, best thing is to just let all the official findings come to light and then make your decisions. We can speculate all day about whether or not Toyota or the drivers are at fault, but we'll all know for sure one way or the other.

Jstas

A story about it from Jalopnik:

http://jalopnik.com/5588081/toyota-planted-wsj-driver-error-story-so-what

I won't repost it here because it's more of a rant and not all that informative. Visit the link if you want to read it all.


I find two issues with this. One, if the story isn't "official", why the anonymity of the NHTSA spokesperson? What does the NHTSA have to hide if all they are saying is "Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Toyota? We didn't release no report yet!"

Two, shame on Toyota. If they know something in advance, fine. But making broad claims like that when the testing body has not finalized or released it's reports is just bad form. Yeah, we all know that Toyota doesn't want to have the findings be any more negative than they already are but jumping the gun like this misleads your consumers, the ones you have so very recently pledge love to hug and to hold and call them George... I see a large ethics issue with it even if the NHTSA report shows similar statements to what Toyota released. It's really not Toyota's place to report on the NHTSA or DOT findings and reports. Besides that, it's in a gray area for insider trading and fixing markets. Even though the actual report is not released yet, Toyota's pseudo-report caused their stock to jump by just over a point. Granted, not much but a gain on that many shares is a considerable financial fortune and probably unfairly gained at that.

You know, Toyota, your reputation is a bloody, drunken mess in the gutter right now. You don't have to kick yourself when you are down. Just let it go and let the chips fall where they may.

Lastly Wall Street Journal...nice display of journalistic integrity, guys. Way to research and actually properly report your sources. Your silly report was picked up by every other news outlet and it was deceptive in that it was not clear who made the report. Maybe Toyota is paying you to report good stuff? Hell, I dunno, maybe you guys own Toyota stock and are tired of getting fleeced in the market? Either way, that's a big fat red check mark in the "Bad" column for you guys.

concealer404

People ranting that Toyota fabricated yesterday's numbers in 3.....2......1.......

AsSiMiLaTeD

I love how we're blaming Toyota for releasing the info before we know for sure what's going on. Unless I'm missing something, do we have any actual proof that Toyota released this?

I know that doesn't matter to some because this is just another chance for them to be able to brand bash, but in the spirit of full disclosure do we know who REALLY released the info?

concealer404

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

I love how we're blaming Toyota for releasing the info before we know for sure what's going on. Unless I'm missing something, do we jar any actual proof that Toyota released this?

I know that doesn't matter to some because this is just another chance for them to be able to brand bash, but in the spirit of full disclosure do we know who REALLY released the info?

I don't believe so.