Expect more Toyota recalls: safety firm
A U.S.-based safety research firm says Toyota's problems of unintended acceleration have more than one cause and until the automaker starts looking in the right place, people can expect future recalls involving more models.
"Toyota would have us believe this was all floor mats, at least as of a couple of months ago. They've now changed their position, saying it's floor mats and accelerator pedals. But the reality is there's more to it. There are incidents that cannot be explained by either one of those mechanical interfaces," said Sean Kane, president of Safety Research and Strategies, Inc., based in Massachusetts.
Kane said his agency has documented 18 deaths due to unintended acceleration in certain Toyota models since 1999, as well as 2,274 incidents resulting in 275 crashes.
"I'm fairly confident that's an undercount because before much of the publicity, there wasn't the kind of investigation and evaluation of sudden unintended acceleration post-crash," Kane said in an interview with CBC Radio's As It Happens on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Toyota announced it would suspend sales and production of eight Toyota models because of sticking accelerator pedals. Last week, Toyota issued a recall for the same models, affecting 2.3 million vehicles in Canada and the U.S.
Toyota dealerships dealing with concerned customers
Toyota dealerships are staying open longer and have hired additional staff to cope with the expected increase in the number of service calls. Customers are being advised not to try to inspect their accelerator pedals themselves.
"It's obvious to us, but it won't be obvious to the consumer," said Dan Golightly, senior operations manager at Downtown Toyota in Toronto.
Golightly said agents at his shop were fielding more calls from concerned car owners. He pointed out the problem existed only in cars made in North America. Vehicles built in Japan, like the Sienna, are not affected.
For the next three days, his shop will be open until midnight to accommodate people who can't get their car serviced during regular working hours.
He expected hours would be extended as well once the replacement part was shipped in.
In the meantime, customers who had committed to buying one of the recalled models are being given alternate models, temporarily.
Any customer who bought a car that was found to have the problem would be given a "loaner" until the problem was fixed, said Golightly.
"There's not many organizations that would take the step to halt production to make sure safety is foremost," he said.
On Thursday, Toyota announced an additional recall of 1.09 million vehicles in the United States covering five models: 2008-10 Highlander, 2009-10 Corolla, 2009-10 Venza, 2009-10 Matrix and 2009-10 Pontiac Vibe.
It has also extended the recall to vehicles in Europe and China. Ford Motor Co. has also announced it has halted production of some full-sized commercial vehicles in China because they contain gas pedals built by the same company that made the accelerators in Toyota's recall.
For Kane, this recall is just the beginning of many more.
"We're not seeing one thing that's the root cause. I think floor mats are certainly a cause and it's entirely possible that pedals are a cause, but certainly many of the incidents we've examined have all the tell-tales of electronic-related defects, and those can come in many forms," said Kane.
According to Kane, Toyota has known about electronic problems affecting acceleration for several years.
"In the past, Toyota has actually done technical bulletins to reflash the algorithms in their control units to prevent unintended acceleration incidents," he said.
Reflashing is a process that involves reconfiguring the computer control chip.
For instance, regarding the 2002 and 2003 Camry, one of the recalled models, Toyota issued a bulletin to dealers, advising them that if consumers reported complaints of unintended acceleration while travelling between 38 and 42 miles per hour that they should "reflash" the computer with a prescribed algorithm to fix the problem.
Toyotas has not made any recalls over electronics. Both recalls involve accelerator pedals and floor mats.
"I think what we're going to see, unfortunately, is there's going to be additional recalls that will cover other models and it's going to unwind over time. The company is now saying it's examining other issues. They can't keep this up for much longer without really losing some significant trust in what they're doing," said Kane.
"The credibility of this company is really going out the window very, very quickly. Consumers have been told one thing — it's floor mats. Now they're shifting, now we're onto accelerator pedals and even that's shifting."