- Toyota reports a "sharp drop in customer concerns" over sudden acceleration claims.
- Complaints have decreased by 80 percent compared with April 2010.
- Toyota and Lexus dealers have performed more than 5 million "remedies" for the three major recalls the automaker announced in late 2009 and early 2010.
ERLANGER, Kentucky — Toyota on Monday reported a "sharp drop in customer concerns" over sudden acceleration claims, noting that the complaints have decreased by 80 percent compared with April 2010. The update on Toyota's progress in responding to massive recalls comes as a hearing on Toyota's request to dismiss lawsuits over sudden-acceleration claims is scheduled for next month in Santa Ana, California.
Toyota's latest update says that Toyota and Lexus dealers have performed more than 5 million "remedies" for the three major recalls the automaker announced in late 2009 and early 2010, "including approximately 1.8 million to address sticking accelerator pedals, 3.1 million to address the potential for unsecured or incompatible floor mats to trap an accelerator pedal, and 128,000 program updates to the antilock brake systems in certain 2010 Prius and Lexus models.
"To date, approximately 80 percent of the sticking pedal modifications have been completed on the 2.3 million vehicles that have been recalled, and more than 86 percent of the ABS program updates have been performed on the 148,000 Prius and Lexus models that were recalled," the company said. "Nearly 58 percent of the floor mat entrapment modifications have been completed on the 5.4 million vehicles that were recalled for this issue."
Toyota said it would broaden its "SMART evaluation process," which responds to consumer vehicle complaints. It said it would now include "investigation of other customer concerns as they arise." The SMART teams are charged with contacting customers within 24 hours of a complaint and arranging for on-site vehicle evaluation. It also reiterated that it would equip all new Toyota vehicles for sale in North America with Smart Stop Technology, a brake override system. On May 20, 2010, James Lentz, president and chief operating officer of Toyota Motor Sales USA, told Congress that brake override would be available across the entire product line by the end of 2010.
In mid-September, Toyota urged a U.S. judge to dismiss lawsuits over sudden-acceleration claims, saying that they are based on anecdotes. A hearing on the request is scheduled for November 19 in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California.
Toyota faces a potential civil liability estimated at more than $10 billion from lawsuits triggered by complaints of runaway vehicles that have also led to worldwide recalls of more than 8 million of its vehicles.
Inside Line says: The complaints may be dwindling, but Toyota has yet to close the book on sudden-acceleration claims from a legal or public relations perspective. — Anita Lienert, Correspondent
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met110 says:
10:09 AM, 10/19/2011
I used to think that the allegations about Toyota car accelerator pedals becoming stuck were wrong until it recently happened to me. I was driving a 2010 RX350 Lexus. The accelerator pedal became stuck and my wife and I careened down a busy street narrowly missing cars, people and lamp posts. I finally brought the car to a halt by slapping on the emergency brake. Fortunately, no one was hurt and no property damage occurred. Fearful of driving the car again, particularly with our grand children, I brought my concerns to owner of my car dealership who did not express any concern for our well-being but rather blamed us and accused us of "fear-mongering." After we hired a lawyer, the dealer agreed to terminate our lease but kept our $4500 security deposit. I will not buy another Toyota made vehicle again because I believe its cars have deadly defects and my dealership's conduct was unacceptable.
sergey2 says:
06:23 PM, 11/01/2010
Safety defects described below related to most vehicles
1. Driver presses the wrong pedal due to bad car design.
If the driver cannot pivot his or her right foot from the accelerator to the brake pedal without lifting driver's heel from the floor it is a bad car design. The cause is the spatial location or orientation of the pedals - drivers anticipate the location of foot pedals (which they cannot see). The driver may attempt to depress a pedal in the location where he or she expects it to be, rather than where it actually is. The result may be unintended actuation of the accelerator pedal when the intention was to depress the brake.
2. Driver presses the wrong pedal due to poor blood circulation.
Due to an inbuilt force of habit: The brain sends a message to the muscle and joint sensory receptors, which tells what parts of the body are moving and pressing the brake and assumes that this action is taking place. The brain is convinced that the driver is pressing the brake and when the vehicle is not stopping the brain says to press harder. This happens due to poor blood circulation. The pressure of the right thigh against the seat restricts normal blood flow and hampers proper circulation which can cause the brain to send error message to the muscle and joint sensory receptors by pressing the wrong pedal.
3. Bad job designing the position of the accelerator pedal.
Toyota in particular has done a poor job designing the position of the accelerator pedal in most of its vehicles. It is too far to the right and when the driver steps on the pedal the upper leg tries to move to the right. The driver tries to prevent that movement by holding the leg straight in an uncomfortable position which increases pressure on lower back paraspinal muscles and leg muscles, therefore increasing muscle spasms, inflammation and pain in lower back and leg area. After some time driving in that uncomfortable position, depending on the driver's age, the driver cannot pivot the right foot from the accelerator to the brake pedal without lifting the heel from the floor, which requires more complex muscular responses and thus longer time than simply pivoting the right foot. In this case, braking requires lifting the foot from the accelerator, moving laterally to the brake pedal and then depressing it. All of that increases stopping distance in the case of emergency braking up to 20%.
ambee514 says:
04:53 PM, 10/05/2010
I am gonna guess that 1 maybe 2 percent of people that tried to sue toyota over this problem actually had a problem and the rest were either the result of stupidity or people trying to con toyota out of money.
although i still wouldnt buy a toyota, but that is because all the cars they have out now are boring and i think i would die of blandness before any type of manufactor error could kill me
zeniff says:
02:25 PM, 10/05/2010
Yes, they just put in engines that don't generate power, thus making it impossible to experience acceleration -- intended or unintended.
jrt600 says:
09:10 AM, 10/05/2010
So enjoyable every time an article about the sudden acceleration issue comes out to hear all the arm chair quarterbacks decry "there was no problem at all, just stupid drivers." Well, I had an 07 Lexus that started going like a bat out of hell, completely at random. Took it in for service on this issue within weeks of buying it. After the 4th service, I was told Lexus/Toyota told the dealership that they'd no longer examine it for that issue, that I'd just have to live with a 300hp+ car accelerating like a bat out of hell (at which point the dealership told me that if they were in my shoes, they'd initiate a lemon law proceeding - which I did, and won...and this was after I tried having them just swap it out for a lesser optioned model of the same/older model year, which they refused). This all happened in 2007, long before I had ever even heard of other people having this problem.
And yes, the floor mats were in the trunk and it still did this - so it's not the floor mats. And yes, on one occasion it happened on open highway and I actually brought my feet up to show my passenger that my foot was not on the gas...while it raced up to 120mph+. And yes, braking will stop you (so long as you don't take your foot off the brake cause you'll lose vacuum and then have a hell of a problem on your hands). But would any of you so blindly assume that your wife/girlfriend/daughter/etc would not panic in such a situation, even after telling them exactly how to control the car when it happens?
Basically, just imagine you're going from a residential street onto a 40mph city street, and your car just takes off from 20mph to 60mph+ - do you have time to come to a complete stop before ramming into the car at the stop light in front of you? or do you just aim for the tree? or do you assume that a flimsy emergency brake will stop a 300hp motor? or do you hold down the keyless start for 3 seconds, by which time you've already hit something? I highly doubt any of you would put a loved one in a vehicle that you had experienced taking off without reason. But please, don't let the actual facts and my personal experience get in the way of your non-experience.
tbone85 says:
06:49 PM, 10/04/2010
Hard to tell anything one way or the other from the information in this report. If you thought there was never an issue, then this report might be used to justify your position. If even more people filed claims, the reaction would likely be "see how many more greedy people there are?" If you thought Toyota was the worst engineering firm in the world, your reactions might be just as self-justifying.
firstwagon says:
05:31 PM, 10/04/2010
My guess is nothing was fixed because nothing was wrong. People just stopped figuring they could make a quick buck off Toyota for their own screw up. They will move on and sue someone else for something stupid.
(And no I don't own a Toyota)
the_enthusiast says:
04:23 PM, 10/04/2010
@ griffilicious, you hope they burn to the ground? Well, then i say the same about ford when my 2005 Excursion exploded (literally) in my driveway. But hey s*** happens. No company is perfect, and things such as this, unfortunately, happen...
shaohsiin says:
04:10 PM, 10/04/2010
There was no real sudden-acceleration at the first place beside few accidents evolved trapped floor mats. Once people find out there is no strong evident can be used to successfully sue Toyota, they stop make such stupid claim.
WasAPasserBy says:
03:36 PM, 10/04/2010
It's like the Audi fiasco in the 80s...
Once the media attention dies away, the sudden accerelation mysteriously dissapears also.