Who owns a Toyota vehicle??

washingtonpost.com

I personally know alot of people who own camry's. Thought I would spread the word.

 

My friend that is a car salesman ( and who has paid close attention to this story as it affects his job ) told me that it was definatly NOT the floormats. I guess they have a publication at his store, and he read that toyota's first attempt to fix the problem was to remove the floormats altogether and leave them in the trunk of the car. That way it would be the customers liability. He said on the last crash upon invistigation the floor mats had never been removed from the trunk so it was definatly a mechanical issue.
Too bad, toyota has always been my preferance for automobiles and trucks.

 

"Toyota has been struggling with gas pedal problems for months. In late September, it recalled more than 4 million vehicles after a luxury Lexus ES350 was involved in a fiery fatal accident in California that focused public attention on the danger. The crash killed a California Highway Patrol officer and three members of his family near San Diego. The Lexus hit speeds exceeding 120 mph and, in a frantic emergency call, a family member told emergency responders that the accelerator was stuck and the driver could not stop. Toyota said the driver's side floor mat jammed the gas pedal."

I know this is a serous problem. But geez turn the damn thing off. It had to take a while to get up to 120+.

 

Seems like they have identified that there is a defective part in the throttle assembly. They just announced that 5 production plants in Ontario will be closed for the first week in February and that sales of current Toyotas have stopped at dealerships. Toyota has taken a long time to develop the reputation of manufacturingn very high quality and very reliable vehicles. It only takes something like this to set everything back. The other manufacturers are already responding offering to buy out existing Toyota leases if the owner buys one of their cars. The next few weeks will be interesting in the auto industry.

 

I wondered the same thing and did a little digging, I guess his wife said on the 911 call the "brakes weren't working". This was a push button to start car that was a loaner from the dealer. Their car was in for service. I guess you have to hold the start button down for 3 seconds to override and shut the motor down?? Still, I would think you could switch in to neutral, unless that was electronically locked out also?? I'm glad my Toy is a '96. The most advanced thing on it is the cassette player.

 

to bad indeed for toyota.. i've owned a toyota for years

 

Reminiscent of the old Audi problems back in the 80's (??), I think.

Imagine if you had a Toyota behind you and a Pinto in front of you? Scary!

But on a serious note, while its sad that this has led to loss of peoples lives, at least Toyota was "man enough" to just STOP all sales until they get it figured out. That has to be costing them millions, if not hundreds of millions. And again, I'm not putting the value of a dollar above a human life, but when was the last time a major company actually admitted they were wrong?

 

I do not own a car and I am happy Toyota does not make motorcycles - lol

 

There is always 2 sides to every story. My Camry only has 410,000 miles on the orginal engine, never even a valve job, orginal starter and alternator. There have been other brands have had this same problem, Ford, Volkswagon and Audi. I will stick with Toyota and by the way there is a Toyota Motocycle.

The war on Toyota
FP Comment
Terence Corcoran, Financial Post







U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood speaks to the media on his remarks on whether Toyota owners who are affected by the recall should drive their vehicles.Alex Wong/Getty Images U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood speaks to the media on his remarks on whether Toyota owners who are affected by the recall should drive their vehicles.
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There can be little doubt that Toyota, the world's greatest auto maker in recent years, has become the victim of much more than another typical out-of-control All-American media frenzy. When top-line political gamesman such as U.S. Transport Secretary Ray LaHood, Congressional pit bull Henry Waxman, and conniving United Auto Workers executives start piling on, this is clearly much bigger sport that the usual ritual public lynching of auto executives, a routine occurrence in Washington. The attack on Toyota, at this time of U.S. economic weakness and populist excess, is fast turning into a great American nationalist assault on a foreign corporation, an economic war.
The White House has denied any such motivation on the part of the United States. But that denial lacks credibility. While it may be technically true that President Obama's team didn't explicitly reach a decision to target Toyota, nobody in this crowd needs a presidential order to turn the Japanese auto giant's Sudden Unintended Acceleration (SUA) problem into a national industrial advantage for the United States. The owners of union-dominated Government Motors can spot a strategic economic opportunity without waiting for the memo from head office.
California Congressman Henry Waxman swung into action, using recent anecdotal reports of sudden acceleration as a pretext for extended assaults on Toyota and its management. The UAW has joined the project as part of its campaign against Toyota's closure of a unionized California plant.
Wednesday you could practically see the calculating wheels spinning under the hood of Mr. LaHood's cranium when the transportation secretary told a committee that Toyota owners should simply "stop driving" their Toyotas. He later claimed to have misspoken, but then said much the same thing. If Toyota drivers are worried, they can take their vehicles to a dealer where, as Mr. LaHood knows, there was nothing the dealer could do since it is expected to take weeks if not months for Toyota to "fix" the alleged cause of Toyota's alleged sudden acceleration problem.
Toyota shares continued their SUA plunge Wednesday, ending just below $74, down from recent highs of $92. The company has lost $23-billion in market capitalization since the crisis began.
At this stage, there is little hard data on whether Toyota actually has a sudden acceleration problem. The company is not helping matters with its apparent scrambling to come up with an explanation and a "fix" for a phenomenon that has been cropping up in auto industry lore for decades. No maker is immune, but Toyota is seems to have been caught in the latest run of reports. All of the reports are anecdotal accounts of out-of-control vehicles for reasons that nobody can ever adequately explain. The latest stories, including one of a Tennessee man who says his 2003 Camry suddenly jolted into a parking space, become instant media legends.
Of the millions of cars on the road, only a few hundred anecdotal reports exist, making it far more likely that other things are happening, including driver mistakes and even fluke occurrences that no amount of corporate fixing can avoid. Usually the stories fade and the auto companies move on, although Audi famously became victim of a SUA craze a couple of decades ago, losing massive market share even though no problem was ever identified beyond driver error.
Toyota's experience looks like it could become even worse than Audi's, mainly because bashing Toyota serves the national economic interest of the United States, U.S. auto makers, union leaders and others whose economic ideas tend toward nationalism. U.S. jobs for U.S. workers employed by U.S. companies.
Is the media involved? The extent of exaggeration surrounding Toyota's problem may be just a little larger than the usual media frenzy. In a typical over-the-top anti-Toyota item, famed author James B. Stewart Wednesday told Wall Street Journal readers to "avoid - or sell - Toyota Motor shares." His reason is that Toyota may have misrepresented the cause of a now notorious crash of a Toyota Lexus ES-350 in San Diego last August. Toyota said the Lexus crash, in which four occupants were killed following a frantic 911 call, was due to a faulty floor mat.
The official accident report by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration makes clear that the floor mat is the likely culprit and Toyota may not quite be responsible. The mat in the Lexus was "not secured" properly, and it was also the wrong mat for that Lexus model. There also appeared to be no notable issues with the accelerator pedal itself.
Another newspaper treatment of the Lexus event, in The New York Times, also treated the San Diego crash as a function of a Toyota acceleration problem that has more causes than a poorly-maintained and wrongly installed floor mat. So far, however, nobody has proven this to be true. Even less clear is how the fix Toyota has announced - involving a new part for the accelerator pedal - is even related to the problem. Was Toyota panicked into doing something - anything - when faced with a looming full-bore economic attack from the United States Economic Marines, with the media imbedded as part of the crusade?



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I currently have an 08 4Runner. Love it. But it is the last Toyota I will own.

The package I got (Urban Runner) is no longer made. It came with an aftermarket radio that had a built in TomTom. It had issues. Had to get it swapped out, chip replaced, chip replaced, chip replaced, and finally the chip replaced which fixed it. I wore thru the rubber floormat. After 12K miles. They replaced it - warranty. Then, the seat bolster ripped. Driver's door side. Said it was wear & tear. Hm. 18K miles. I was not a straight cut, or a rip, but a jagged tear. Happened when it was so f'n cold here. Not covered. So, I got it fixed. Luckily, it only cost me $25.00 Cheap. The guy who fixed it looked at me and said two things that turned my mind about Toyota. I was on the fence until this point. He said 1 - "This will happen again" and "I cannot believe Toyota uses such cheap leather in their seats." Yeah, it was only $25.00 but they wouldn't stand behind it when a repair man saw how cheap it was. OK; maybe it is because of the air bag there. Don't know.

Me & my family has had several toyotas in the past. My Dad han an 86 4x4 pickup. Indestructable. It was sold with over 170K miles, and a rusted off bed, but it still ran great. 22R-E engine. Mom had an 89 Celica GT, which she fipped. Doing 30, caught a guide wire for a telephone pole. DOn't ask me how. I had an 84 Celica GT. I beat that car until it screamed, and it always came back for more as well. It left, rusted out, with 183K miles. 22R-E engine never burned any oil. Mom got a 2000 Camry. It was sold with over 200K miles. Ran great. the driver's seat moved when you accelerated or stopped. About 2" is all. Sis had a Camry (repo'd) and a Avalon, which she sold to Mom because of her car. I've known several others with Toyotas that were just plain beat. And lasted forever.

But now, they won't stand beind their product - for me at least. I love it, will keep it for several years. Just hope the seat stays together.