Toyota

[doug]

updated 10:22 a.m. ET Feb. 3, 2010
Autos
Toyota hit by over 100 Prius brake complaints
Another black eye for Toyota as sales are battered by massive recall
The Associated Press
TOKYO - Toyota Motor Corp. has been hit by over 100 complaints in the U.S. and Japan about brake problems with the popular Prius hybrid, the latest in a spate of quality troubles for the automaker as it grapples with massive global recalls.

The Japanese company's sales are being battered in the U.S. — Toyota's biggest market — after recalls of top-selling models to fix a gas pedal that can stick in the depressed position.

The new Prius gas-electric hybrid, which went on sale in Japan and the U.S. in May 2009, is not part of the recalls that extend to Europe and China, covering nearly 4.5 million vehicles.

As previously reported by msnbc.com, The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has received about 100 complaints involving the brakes of the Prius new model. Two involved crashes resulting in injuries.

Japan's transport ministry said Wednesday it has also received 14 complaints since July last year about brake problems with Toyota's new Prius hybrid.

The 14 complaints included an accident in July 2009, in which a Prius crashed head on into another car at an intersection. Transport ministry official Masaya Ota said two people were slightly injured in the accident.

"The Prius driver in the accident told police that a brake did not work," Ota said. "Other Prius drivers also complained brakes were not so sharp." The complaints in Japan involve the new Prius model, and the vehicles were all made in Japan, he said.

The ministry ordered Toyota, the world's No. 1 automaker, to investigate the complaints. The other 13 cases happened from December to January 2010. Ota said the ministry has yet to receive a formal report on the complaints from Toyota.

Toyota spokeswoman Ririko Takeuchi said the company has received reports about the Prius complaints in North America and in Japan and was now looking into the matter.


Toyota has long prided itself on sterling vehicle quality and assembly line methods that empowered workers to ensure faultless production.

The latest recall, announced Jan. 21, over sticky gas pedals affects 2.3 million vehicles in the U.S. alone.

Any serious problems emerging in the Prius, Toyota's flagship green car model, is certain to further tarnish its brand.

The Prius, now in its third generation since its 1997 introduction, is the best-selling gas-electric hybrid in the world, racking up a cumulative 1.6 million units sold so far, according to Toyota.

Hybrids, by going back and forth between a gasoline engine and electric motor, tend to offer better mileage in slow-speed and stop-and-go driving that's common in crowded cities.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[doug]

updated 3:32 a.m. ET Feb. 4, 2010
Autos
Toyota admits Prius design problems
Firm investigates how to inform people who bought cars before January
The Associated Press
TOKYO - Toyota on Thursday said there were design problems with the antilock brake system in the new Prius, which went on sale last year.

Toyota Motor Corp. spokeswoman Ririko Takeuchi said that the firm found out there were design problems and corrected the design for Prius models sold since late January.

But it was still investigating how to inform people who had bought them earlier.

Complaints about braking problems in the third-generation Prius have been reported in both the U.S. and Japan, combining to some 180, and come amid massive global recalls of eight car models for faulty gas pedals.

The Japanese company's sales are being battered in the U.S. — Toyota's biggest market — after recalls of top-selling models to fix a gas pedal that can stick in the depressed position.

The new Prius gas-electric hybrid, which went on sale in Japan and the U.S. in May 2009, is not part of the recalls that extend to Europe and China, covering nearly 4.5 million vehicles.

Injuries
As previously reported by msnbc.com, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has received about 100 complaints involving the brakes of the Prius new model. Two involved crashes resulting in injuries.

Toyota said late Wednesday it has received 77 complaints in Japan over Prius brake problems.

The complaints included an accident in July 2009, in which a Prius crashed head on into another car at an intersection. Transport ministry official Masaya Ota said two people were slightly injured in the accident.

"The Prius driver in the accident told police that a brake did not work," Ota said. "Other Prius drivers also complained brakes were not so sharp." The complaints in Japan involve the new Prius model, and the vehicles were all made in Japan, he said.

The ministry ordered Toyota, the world's No. 1 automaker, to investigate the complaints. The other 13 cases happened from December to January 2010. Ota said the ministry has yet to receive a formal report on the complaints from Toyota.

Toyota has long prided itself on sterling vehicle quality and assembly line methods that empowered workers to ensure faultless production.

The latest recall, announced Jan. 21, over sticky gas pedals affects 2.3 million vehicles in the U.S. alone.

Hybrids, by going back and forth between a gasoline engine and electric motor, tend to offer better mileage in slow-speed and stop-and-go driving that's common in crowded cities.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[doug]

updated 12:08 a.m. ET Feb. 4, 2010
Federal Toyota probe in ’07 resolved nothing
Evidence of accelerator problems surfaced more than two years ago
By Peter Whoriskey
The Washington Post
Federal regulators uncovered stark evidence that some Toyota cars accelerated unexpectedly more than two years ago. But neither the government's safety agency nor the automaker apparently recognized at the time how broad the dangers would turn out to be.

During a little-noticed 2007 inquiry, investigators found that at least three of every 100 Lexus ES 350 owners in Ohio reported experiencing unintended acceleration, an unacceptably high percentage given the potentially fatal consequences, industry experts said.

"Anything over 1 percent would raise a red flag, particularly for the manufacturer," said James C. Fell, who worked at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for 30 years, and was chief of research for traffic safety programs.

The investigation opened formally in August 2007, one of the few times NHTSA commenced a full-fledged investigation into reports of Toyotas accelerating unexpectedly. More often, the inquiries have ended at the "preliminary evaluation" stage, meaning investigators reviewed the reports but didn't venture into engineering analysis. In this case, they acquired a Lexus ES 350 and attached instruments to it to monitor the operation of its accelerator and brake pedal. The investigators also exposed the accelerator system to magnetic fields.

In addition, investigators gathered accounts of drivers crashing in cars that sped out of control. Among those interviewed was a 70-year-old Illinois woman who was taken on a two-mile ride at 60 miles per hour before she collided with another vehicle in an intersection.

But agency officials only partially identified the cause of the problem and, moreover, concluded it affected a limited number of cars.

Reputation under assault

This week, as the automaker found its reputation for quality and reliability under assault, a reading of the Lexus inquiry raises questions about why the automaker and the safety agency failed to prevent the problem from causing the current furor.

Officials now seem intent on leaving no stone unturned, taking pains to err on the side of caution. On Wednesday, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood he would urge Toyota owners to stop driving recalled vehicles immediately. He later backed off his remarks, but shares of Toyota plunged by more than 7 percent in the moments following the reporting of his statements.

Japanese officials, meanwhile, have directed Toyota to investigate the 2010 Prius braking system while their U.S. counterparts said they will conduct their own probe of the Prius's brakes. Of 171 complaints filed by 2010 Prius owners with the NHTSA, 111 involved brake problems, the agency's database shows, and at least two led to driver injuries.


Toyota representatives did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

If anything was learned from the 2007 inquiry, those lessons have not gotten the company very far, for Toyota today seems to be wrangling with the same issue: What exactly is causing the problem?

Last fall, Toyota announced that it had resolved the problem by issuing a recall of floor mats. The mats, the company said, sometimes trapped the accelerator in the depressed position.

Then in recent weeks, it announced that it had identified another cause — sticking accelerator pedals. Millions more vehicles were recalled.

The shifting diagnoses have left members of Congress and some auto safety experts questioning whether the company has fully identified the causes of the unintended acceleration incidents.

The 2007 inquiry suggests that identifying the root cause can be difficult.

As the investigation got underway, the safety agency had fielded 26 complaints about the Lexus and the Toyota Camry, according to agency records. Toyota, when asked, reported another 31.

The trouble with such complaints, at least from a research point of view, is that the group of people complaining may not represent the owners as a whole. A complaint can stem from a real problem, or perhaps the driver has a grudge against the company or may simply be trying to blame bad driving on the car.

So in addition to acquiring and testing a vehicle, the investigators decided to conduct a survey. As the investigation evolved, the focus narrowed to the 2007 Lexus ES 350.

It sent 1,986 surveys to registered owners of the cars, a group that encompassed the entire list of such owners in the state of Ohio, according to the agency.

The agency received back 600 responses. Of those, 59 said they had experienced episodes of unintended acceleration.

'Incredibly high percentage'

The figure represents 3 percent of the total population of Ohio Lexus 350 owners, and 10 percent of those who responded to the survey.

"That's an incredibly high percentage," said Clarence Ditlow, director of the Center for Auto Safety.


After the engineering review, Toyota and the regulators decided that the cause was that the accelerator had been stuck in the grooves of the all-weather floor mats some owners had put in. It was shown that the floor mats could trap the accelerator.

So the company declared a recall of approximately 55,000 such floor mats and the case was closed.

But for some consumers, the mystery remained.

Twenty-four of the 59 owners who reported acceleration episodes in the survey did not report having the floor mats: What caused the problem?

The investigation didn't speculate.

"It's hard to believe that a company with the reputation for engineering excellence that Toyota enjoys doesn't know what is going on. But if they do, they haven't shared what they know," Ditlow said.

© 2010 The Washington Post Company

[doug]

updated 10:34 a.m. ET Feb. 4, 2010
Autos
Toyota cites design flaw with Prius brakes
Automaker admits there were problems with hybrid’s antilock brake system

When the Prius moves on a bumpy or slippery surface, a driver can feel a pause in the braking when the vehicle switches between the traditional hydraulic brakes and the electronically operated braking system, said Paul Nolasco, a Toyota spokesman.
The Associated Press
TOKYO - Toyota Motor Corp. acknowledged design problems with the brakes in its prized Prius hours before the U.S. Department of Transportation opened an investigation into the 2010 model.

The new investigation adds to the catalog of woes for the Japanese automaker as it reels from massive gas-pedal recalls around the world.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told the AP it received 124 reports from consumers, including four reports of crashes. The investigation will look into allegations of momentary loss of braking capability while traveling over uneven road surfaces, potholes or bumps.

The Japanese government has ordered Toyota to investigate brake problems. The automaker said it had corrected problems with the antilock brake system in Prius models sold since late last month, including those shipped overseas.

But the company said it was still investigating how to inform customers who had bought them earlier. Nothing was decided on that front for Prius gas-electric hybrids sold outside Japan, according to Toyota.

"We are investigating whether there are defects in the Prius," Toyota executive Hiroyuki Yokoyama told reporters at the automaker's Tokyo headquarters.

When the car moves on a bumpy or slippery surface, a driver can feel a pause in the braking when the vehicle switches between the traditional hydraulic brakes and the electronically operated braking system, said Paul Nolasco, a company spokesman. He credited that pause to the two systems in a gas-electric hybrid — the gas-engine and the electric motor.

The brakes start to work if the driver keeps pushing the pedal, but the driver may momentarily feel they aren't working, he said. Fixing that included a software programming change, he said.

Company mulling Prius recall

Whether a recall was in the works for the Prius is still undecided, according to Toyota.

A major Toyota dealership in Tokyo said the automaker had informed dealers that Prius brakes can sometimes fail to work for less than a second but it had not told owners.


"It is disappointing because the Prius was receiving such rave reviews," said Hiroyuki Naito, a manager at the dealership. The latest model Prius hit showrooms last May and is only made in Japan.

In recent weeks, the automaker had answered questions about its overseas recalls for gas pedals with assurances that problems didn't extend to Japanese vehicles, implying it was doing a better job with quality control in Japan.

'I plan to drive very carefully'

But Prius owners were worried.

Akira Suzuki, 25, who makes surf boards and teaches surfing, was excited about the high mileage his recently purchased hybrid offers — but concerned about its possible problems.


"I'm not sure how safe it is. I plan to drive very carefully," said Suzuki, who lives in a Tokyo suburb.

Earlier in Washington, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood startled the public with a comment, which he later retracted, that Americans should park their recalled Toyotas unless driving to dealers for accelerator repairs.

The Prius was not part of the recall spanning the U.S., Europe and China over sticking gas pedals in eight top-selling models including the Camry. That recall involved 2.3 million cars in the U.S. alone.


Toyota senior managing director Takahiko Ijichi defended the automaker's quality standards.

"We have not sacrificed the quality for the sake of saving costs," he said. "Quality is our lifeline. We want our customers to feel safe and regain their trust as soon as possible."

Toyota for the first time gave an estimate of the costs of the global gas-pedal recall. The $2 billion total represents $1.1 billion for repairs and $770 million to $880 million in lost sales.

Toyota is expecting to lose 100,000 in vehicle sales because of the recall fallout — 80,000 of them in North America.

The tarnishing of the Prius nameplate is also a serious setback for Toyota's recovery from the global auto slump.

"It's very unclear what the future will bring," said Mamoru Katou, auto analyst with Tokai Tokyo Research. "Toyota's image as a leader in hybrids has been hurt."

The automaker has received 77 complaints in Japan about braking problems for the Prius. Separately, the Japanese government confirmed 14 complaints. About 100 complaints over Prius brakes have been filed in the U.S.

At least one accident has been reported in Japan suspected of being linked to faulty braking. In that accident, in July 2009, a Prius crashed head on into another car, slightly injuring two people, according to the transport ministry.

Toyota had looked into that accident and concluded there were no problems with the Prius.

Dealers start receiving parts

In the U.S., harried dealers began receiving parts to repair defective gas pedals in millions of vehicles and said they'd be extending their hours deep into the night to try and catch up. Toyota said that would solve the problem — which it said was extremely rare — of cars unaccountably accelerating.

Toyota is set to face additional questioning from U.S. congressional and other government investigators. Toyota has shut down several new vehicle assembly lines and is rushing parts to dealers to fix problems with the accelerators, trying to preserve a reputation of building safe, durable vehicles.

The latest recall involves 2009-10 RAV4 crossovers, 2009-10 Corollas, 2009-10 Matrix hatchbacks, 2005-10 Avalons, 2007-10 Camrys, 2010 Highlander crossovers, 2007-10 Tundra pickups and 2008-10 Sequoia SUVs.


U.S. lawmakers who are now digging into the recalls say they would look into the Prius.

Many consumer groups have questioned whether Toyota's gas pedal fix will work and have asserted it could be connected to problems with the electronic throttle control systems.

Yasuaki Iwamoto, auto analyst with Okasan Securities in Tokyo, said the big challenge for Toyota was rebuilding its damaged brand, especially in overseas markets.

"For all people who own Toyota cars, for all people with jobs related to Toyota, this huge sense of uncertainty simply isn't going away," he said.

© 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[doug]

2/4/2010 6:00 PM ET
Will your Toyota's insurance go up?
Lawsuits against Toyota are beginning to mount after millions of vehicles are recalled. But calculating coverage rates goes beyond what you see in the news.
By Insure.com
When a major car manufacturer like Toyota announces a recall on your vehicle, you're likely to be concerned about your car's safety. But you may also wonder what the recall will mean for your car insurance rate.

Toyota recently announced recalls of roughly 5.2 million vehicles for a pedal entrapment and floor mat problem and an additional 2.3 million vehicles for a gas pedal problem. Product liability lawsuits and wrongful death lawsuits against Toyota are beginning to mount.

But car insurance companies do not base rates on recalls or lawsuits -- they use a car's claims history. Currently, there's no evidence that claims due to Toyota's gas pedals have affected insurance premiums for Toyota owners. And with so many Toyotas on the road, it would take a significant number of claims to affect premiums.

"Traditionally, Toyotas have been safe cars," says Peter Moraga, a spokesman for the Insurance Information Network of California. "They've had a good safety reputation, and their crash test results have been decent."

Your insurance premium is partly calculated based on the type of car you drive (the make and model's claims record). Other factors include your driving record, claims and credit history, age, gender, type of car insurance you purchase and where you live. If your car model is associated with a higher-than-average number of claims every year -- for any reason -- it's likely to jack up your insurance premium.

It may take years to see if Toyota's recall has any an impact on premiums.

For that to happen, insurers would have to see a huge influx in claims for the recalled makes and models. If Toyota fixes the problem quickly, then there may not be an increase in claims, Moraga says. Toyota already announced that parts to reinforce the pedals are being shipped for use by dealers and that dealer training is under way.

"Has this raised a red flag? Yes. Will this mean higher insurance rates? Maybe. But at this point we don't know," Moraga says. "I think the biggest impact is going to be on the (Toyota) brand itself and its reputation."

If you're in an accident caused by a gas pedal malfunction, your insurance company will pay the claim.

"But then insurers may go after Toyota if it was a defect that caused the accident (to recoup their expense)," says Moraga.

Rumblings began 3 years ago

What's a Toyota owner to do?
Toyota's gas pedal problem didn't happen overnight. State Farm, the nation's largest home and auto insurance company, can sometimes use its data from insurance claims to help identify car defects years ahead of a recall.

"State Farm has received inquiries about alleged unwanted acceleration problems in Toyota and Lexus vehicles in recent years," says spokesman Dick Luedke.

"We track claim data and voluntarily share that data with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In this case, State Farm notified NHTSA on a number of occasions, starting in late 2007, about an increase in situations involving alleged unwanted acceleration in Toyotas."

Luedke continues, "We do encourage our auto claims representatives to -- when they have a claim involving an alleged failure -- notify our claims research group, which in turn contacts the NHTSA when appropriate."

A hearing by a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Feb. 25 will address how quickly Toyota and the NHTSA responded to consumer complaints about the gas pedals.

This article was written by Kat Zeman and Amy Danise for Insure.com.

[doug]

updated 10:23 a.m. ET Feb. 5, 2010
Autos
Toyota's chief apologizes for global recalls
Grandson of beleaguered firm’s founder speaks at hastily called conference
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Toyota's president apologized Friday for the massive global recalls over sticking gas pedals as the automaker scrambles to repair a damaged reputation and sliding sales.

But Akio Toyoda, appointed to the top job at Toyota Motor Corp. last June, said the company is still deciding what steps to take to fix brake problems in the popular Prius gas-electric hybrid.

Speaking at a hastily announced news conference that lasted an hour, a stern-looking Toyoda promised to beef up quality control.

"We are facing a crisis," he said, publicly confronting the automaker's safety problems for the first time since the global recalls were announced Jan. 21.

He said the company is setting up a special committee he would head himself.

It would review internal checks, go over consumer complaints and listen to outside experts to come up with a solution to the widening quality problems.

"I offer my apologies for the worries," he said. "Many customers are wondering whether their cars are OK."

Toyoda, grandson of the automaker's founder, said the company was moving quickly on the global recalls covering 4.5 million vehicles for sticking gas pedals, about half of them in the U.S.

Dealers are scrambling to make repairs on the gas pedals, which need a new steel part to solve the sticking problem.

Toyota would fully cooperate with the investigation by U.S. federal authorities into Prius problems, Toyoda said.

There have been nearly 200 complaints in Japan and the U.S. of drivers experiencing a short delay before the brakes kick in — a problem that can be fixed with a software programming change.

The automaker has fixed the programming glitch in Prius models that went on sale since last month, but has done nothing yet on 270,000 Prius cars sold last year in Japan and the U.S. The remodeled third-generation Prius went on sale in May last year.

A less-than-perfect Prius, the vehicle of choice for Hollywood movie stars like Leonardo Dicaprio, threatens to be an even more serious blow for Toyota's image than the gas pedal recalls. The hybrid is a symbol of Toyota's technological prowess and ambitions to lead the auto industry in green, low-pollution cars.

Toyota is also investigating possible brake problems with its luxury Lexus hybrid and the Sai compact sedan, both of which use the same brake system as the Prius. Toyota has not received any complaints about the Lexus HS250h and the probe is to ensure safety, it has said. The Sai is not sold outside Japan.

Toyoda criticized
Toyoda, 53, has been criticized for not coming out sooner to answer questions about the flood of quality problems that have hit Toyota.

Masaaki Sato, an auto industry expert who has written books on Toyota and its Japanese rival Honda, said Friday's public appearance was the company's last chance to keep the situation from worsening.

"He should have come out a week ago," Sato said of Toyoda during an appearance on a popular late night news program following the press conference. "After all the foot dragging, he was pushed into a corner."

Sato also criticized Toyoda for having to be prodded into action in the U.S. by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who called the Toyota president for talks.

"The issue is a huge problem in the U.S., far more serious than you might think," Sato said. "Those who are driving Toyota cars must be worried, and as Toyota CEO he has a responsibility to address their concerns and provide an explanation to the U.S. government."

Shinichi Sasaki, executive vice president overseeing quality control, told the news conference he was grateful that LaHood had pressed Toyota to go ahead quickly with the gas pedal recalls in the U.S.


Toyota did not have a fix for the problem at the time, and it is relatively unusual to announce a recall without a plan for a remedy. Toyota did not come out with a fix for more than a week, further frustrating customers. It also suspended sales and production on eight models in the U.S.

"It would have become even harder to win back the trust of customers, and the damage to the Toyota brand would have been greater," Sasaki said solemnly. "It was hard but in hindsight I am grateful to Mr. LaHood."

U.S. officials have blessed Toyota's solution to the gas pedal problem, a small piece of steel designed to eliminate excess friction in the pedal mechanism, but have criticized Toyota for being too slow in responding to customer complaints.

© 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[doug]

updated 5:15 a.m. ET Feb. 6, 2010
Toyota recall spurs questions on auto ratings
Consumers might need to adjust their expectations, safety experts say
By Annys Shin
The Washington Post
Toyota's recall of millions of cars in order to fix sticky gas pedals and loose floor mats has inconvenienced customers around the world and damaged the automaker's reputation. Now it could also be undermining public confidence in the system of independent ratings and reviews that consumers have come to rely on and that for decades gave Toyota vehicles high marks for reliability and safety.

The consistently strong ratings Toyota vehicles have received over the years from Consumer Reports, Edmunds.com and other consumer auto sites have fueled sales and helped the Japanese company surpass General Motors last year as the world's largest automaker. However, for many consumers, those ratings now appear to fly in the face of serious safety issues spotlighted by the sticky-pedal recall and a separate recall Toyota expanded last fall, aimed at stopping gas pedals from getting caught in floor mats. Both recalls stem from hundreds of complaints of sudden unintended accelerations in Toyotas that have allegedly been linked to more than a dozen fatalities since 1999.

Auto safety experts say consumers might need to adjust their expectations about ratings from private groups because of the limited nature of their testing and the degree to which they rely on government and industry testing that itself is in large part based on trust. And their recommendations are no substitute for proper surveillance by regulators and manufacturers.

Some of the most strident criticism has been reserved for Consumer Reports, which accepts no advertising and is among the most respected reviewers. On Jan. 29, three days after Toyota announced the latest recall, the magazine suspended its recommendations for eight models, citing concerns raised by the recall. Jim Guest, president of Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports, said in a statement it was doing so because "the vehicles have been identified as potentially unsafe" and "without a fix yet being available to consumers . . . our position is that you shouldn't compromise on safety."

Backlash
The move sparked a backlash on the magazine's Cars Blog. One reader who identified himself only as Kevin wrote, "instead of giving an automatic 'recommend' rating to Toyotas, don't your think your readership (much of whom looks to you — and only you) deserves thorough retesting of all Toyotas and revised ratings based on said testing?"

Another reader identified as John wrote, "Consumer Reports, you make me very irritated. Remove all recommended status of all Toyota vehicles not just temporarily, but permanently."

Safety Research & Strategies founder Sean Kane says consumer auto reviewers should not be faulted for not detecting problems that occur infrequently and often intermittently and whose causes have been hard to pin down. "They are evaluating vehicles in a different way," he said.

Kelley Blue Book offers reviews on its Web site but doesn't do any independent testing, said spokeswoman Robyn Eckard. Edmunds.com does do some formal testing of new models, focused mainly on comfort and performance, said spokesman Chintan Talati. It also posts service bulletins, safety advisories and recall notices from automakers, information from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, and crash-test data from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Commenters have raised the gas pedal issue in online forums but not in enough volume to raise red flags, Talati said.

Consumer Reports bases its ratings on three factors: a test drive on a closed track aimed at evaluating drivability and performance, reliability data gathered from a survey of car owners that covers 1.4 million vehicles, and crash-test data compiled by federal regulators and the IIHS.


David Zuby, IIHS senior vice president, says the institute's crash testing, regarded by safety advocates as more stringent than the NHTSA's, focuses on crash-worthiness and would also not be likely to catch problems with gas pedals or brakes. The institute provides separate ratings for front, rear and side-impact crashes, as well as for roof strength, particularly important in rollover accidents. It also awards a separate top rating to vehicles that rate well on the crash tests and also come with electronic stability control, which can help prevent accidents.

In 2009, Toyota won more IIHS Top Safety Pick awards than any other manufacturer; in 2010, it didn't win any. Zuby said he and his colleagues look at complaints filed with the NHTSA but not regularly, and when they do, they tend to focus on crash-related comments.

Consumer Reports attempts to suss out emerging problems using its vehicle owner survey. It looks for incident rates of at least 1 in 100, said David Champion, director of automobile testing for the magazine. The NHTSA has received approximately 2,262 complaints of sudden unintended acceleration in Toyotas since 1999, according to an analysis by Safety Research & Strategies, a vehicle- and product-safety research firm based in Rehoboth, Mass. Toyota sold about 20 million vehicles during that period, for an incident rate of 1 in 10,000.

Consumer Reports also looked at 2008 complaints of sudden unintended acceleration in the NHTSA database and found that Toyota had received more complaints relative to its market share than its competitors. Toyota vehicles triggered 41 percent of complaints of sudden unintended acceleration; the company's market share at the time was about 17 percent. However, demonstrating how rare sudden unintended accelerations are, the total number of complaints involving Toyotas in 2008 was 52 out of 2 million, Champion said.

Champion said the magazine's methods are limited by the fact that its main source of reliability data is a self-reported survey, in contrast to warranty claims and accident and injury reports that the NHTSA and manufacturers can access.

Randy Whitfield, who runs a Crownsville statistical analysis firm, Quality Control System, likens what Consumer Reports does to a small-scale clinical drug trial, which makes it unlikely it will uncover every potential problem that is liable to crop up when the drug is used by millions. "Everything changes when you put something out in the field," he said. Whitfield's firm, which has done work for Consumers Union, said a better surveillance system is needed to track problems such as sudden unintended acceleration.

Sudden unintended acceleration is most likely a "multi-root problem," Kane said, that is more complicated than the simple mechanical explanations offered by the manufacturer.

In 2007, Toyota said the problem was gas pedals getting caught in floor mats and recalled a limited number of models. Then last November, it announced it was recalling more than 4 million vehicles due to gas-pedal-snagging floor mats. That was followed by the latest recall, involving sticky gas pedals. At least four class-action lawsuits also allege the vehicles' electronic throttle-control system is to blame.

© 2010 The Washington Post Company

[doug]

updated 3:54 p.m. ET Feb. 9, 2010
Autos
Toyota begins public, back room PR effort
Automaker apologizes to consumers in ads, gathers the lobbyists in D.C.

Toyota announced early Tuesday it would recall about 437,000 Prius and other hybrid vehicles to fix brake problems.
The Associated Press
In public, Toyota is running apologetic TV ads and vowing to win back customers' trust. Behind the scenes, the besieged carmaker is trying to learn all it can about congressional investigations, maybe even steer them if it can.

It's part of an all-out drive by the world's biggest auto manufacturer to redeem its once unassailable brand — hit anew on Tuesday as Toyota's global recall ballooned to 8.5 million cars and trucks. The day's safety recall of 440,000 of its flagship Prius and other hybrids, plus a Tokyo news conference where the company's president read a statement in English pledging to "regain the confidence of our customers," underscored a determination to keep buyers' faith from sinking to unrecoverable depths.

In Washington, facing congressional inquiries and government investigations, Toyota through its lawyers and lobbyists is working full-speed to salvage its reputation. The confidential strategy — Toyota will say little publicly about its efforts — includes efforts to sway upcoming hearings on Capitol Hill and is based on experiences by companies that have survived similar consumer and political crises — and those that haven't.

Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich, said Toyota representatives visited his offices seeking to learn all they could.

"They're probing us. 'What are you going to ask us, where are you going with this whole thing?'" said Stupak, who is chairman of a House subcommittee looking into Toyota's problems.

Toyota, which reported spending more than $4 million on lobbying last year, declined to discuss details of its plans. The company has "beefed up our team" by hiring additional lobbyists, lawyers and public relations experts to "work with regulators and lawmakers collaboratively towards a successful recall effort, ensuring proper, diligent compliance," spokeswoman Cindy Knight said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

Rough headlines for Toyota continued Tuesday. In other developments:

State Farm, the largest U.S. auto insurer, said it had informed federal regulators late in 2007 about growing reports of unexpected acceleration in Toyotas. That disclosure raised new questions about whether the government missed clues about problems.
Congressional investigators cited growing evidence that not all the causes of Toyota's acceleration problems have been identified. A staff memo from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which had planned an oversight hearing for Wednesday, said there was substantial evidence that remedies such as redesigned floor mats have failed to solve problems. The hearing was postponed until Feb. 24 due to snow in Washington.
Federal safety officials said they were examining complaints from Toyota Corolla owners about steering problems.

Toyota faces at least two congressional hearings besides Stupak's, including the one delayed by snow. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and a longtime supporter of Toyota, said his panel will hold a hearing after the two by the House.

Their focus: floor mats that get caught under accelerators, sticky gas pedals and brake problems, and what the company and federal regulators knew about them.

Professionals who have waged major damage-control struggles say the best strategy for Toyota mixes apology, openness, details about a specific fix — plus a little help from friends on Capitol Hill. In recent days, American TV viewers have seen ads in which a soft-spoken announcer talks about Toyota's dedication to safety and its customers.


"We're working around the clock to ensure we build vehicles of the highest quality, to restore your faith in our company," one spot says.

Toyota is expected to turn to its natural allies — lawmakers from states with Toyota plants or offices, which include Texas, Missouri, Indiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky and West Virginia. Republicans are considered especially likely to back the company, whose workers are not unionized.

Toyota has been encouraging dealers to contact local members of Congress, according to Bailey Wood, spokesman for the National Automobile Dealers Association. About 60 of the 1,200 U.S. Toyota dealers planned to visit Washington this week, weather permitting, said Cody Lusk, president of the American International Automobile Dealers Association. Their message: Toyota employs 34,000 people in the U.S. and accounts for 164,000 other jobs at dealerships and parts suppliers.

"They provide a lot of jobs, a lot of the tax base, and they want members to know," Lusk said.

Toyota also flew 23 workers from plants around the country to Capitol Hill to meet with lawmakers' staffs, emphasizing that the people who make the parts and build the vehicles care about quality.

One worker who tests cars and trucks said he takes it personally that he never found the gas pedal problem.

"I feel that I failed customers by not finding this issue," said Jim Shuker, who works at Toyota's Arizona Proving Grounds in Wittmann, Ariz. "We were not able to duplicate it."

Friendly legislators can limit the duration of congressional hearings and ask favorable questions that would give Toyota officials a chance to tell their side of the story. Their goal would compress unfavorable news stories about the hearings to as few days as possible, while making sure the company avoids being confrontational.

"You're being called up there so Congress can beat you up a little bit," said Gene Grabowski, who chairs Levick Strategic Communications' crisis and litigation practice. "By the time it gets to a hearing, you're there to take some punishment, to listen to their concerns."

In the meantime, Akio Toyoda, Toyota president, wrote an opinion column in Tuesday's Washington Post in which he promised an outside review of company operations, better responses to customer complaints and improved communication with federal officials.


The Toyota recalls are the highest-profile congressional probe of the auto industry since a slew of deadly accidents prompted the Firestone tire recall in 2000. Most of the tires were on popular Ford Explorer sport utility vehicles.

Both companies suffered damage to their reputations, but both bounced back. Ford was proactive, briefing officials with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Congress and stressing that the safety of their customers was paramount. Firestone offered to replace its tires for free.

Things didn't go as well for the manufacturer at the center of a salmonella scare, Peanut Corporation of America. The company's products were linked to nine deaths and hundreds of cases of food poisoning, and it badly mishandled congressional hearings that showed the company shipped its products even after tests revealed they were tainted with bacteria.


© 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[doug]

2/11/2010 12:15 PM ET
Toyota's deadly secrets
Regulators came to doubt Toyota's commitment to addressing safety defects, and recent events have proved them right.
By The Wall Street Journal
On Jan. 19, in a closed-door meeting in Washington, D.C., two top executives from Toyota Motor gave American regulators surprising news.

Evidence had been mounting for years that Toyota cars could speed up suddenly, a factor suspected in crashes causing more than a dozen deaths. Toyota had blamed the problem on floor mats pinning the gas pedal. Now, the two Toyota men revealed they knew of a problem in its gas pedals.

How good is your car insurance rate?
The two top officials from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration "were steamed," according to a person who discussed the meeting with both sides. As the meeting closed, NHTSA chief David Strickland hinted at using the agency's full authority, which can include subpoenas, fines, and even forcing automakers to stop selling cars.

Toyota had known about the gas-pedal problem for more than a year. Its silence with U.S. regulators, and other newly uncovered details from the crisis enveloping Toyota, reveal a growing rift between the Japanese automaker and NHTSA, one of its top regulators. Regulators came to doubt Toyota's commitment to addressing safety defects, according to interviews with federal officials and industry executives, and accounts of Toyota and NHTSA interactions the past year.

The heart of Toyota's problem: Its secretive corporate culture in Japan clashed with U.S. requirements that automakers disclose safety threats, people familiar with the matter say. The relationship soured even though Toyota had hired two former NHTSA officials to manage its ties with the agency.

Toyota's troubles spread Tuesday when it recalled all Priuses to address a braking problem, even as executives suggested the step was unnecessary.

Toyota acknowledges the rift with regulators. "Believe me, we have changed our mind-set," said Shinichi Sasaki, Toyota's quality chief, referring to a heated December confrontation in Tokyo with NHTSA officials over floor mats. "We don't believe this is going to be a problem in the future. We are completely on the same page with NHTSA."

Toyota's woes have roots in 2001's redesigned Camry sedan, which featured a new type of gas pedal. Instead of physically connecting to the engine with a mechanical cable, the new pedal used electronic sensors to send signals to a computer controlling the engine. The same technology migrated to cars including Toyota's luxury Lexus ES sedan. The main advantage is fuel efficiency.


What's a Toyota owner to do?
But by early 2004, NHTSA was getting complaints that the Camry and ES sometimes sped up without the driver hitting the gas. It launched its first acceleration probe, focusing on 37 complaints, 30 of which involved accidents, according to a NHTSA document filled out by Scott Yon, an agency investigator, dated March 3, 2004.

Yon and another NHTSA official, Jeffrey Quandt, discussed the case several times over the next 20 days with Toyota, according to a deposition by a Toyota official filed in a Michigan lawsuit related to one of the fatal crashes. In that accident, a 2005 Camry allegedly raced out of control for a quarter-mile, and sped up to 80 miles an hour from 25, before crashing and killing its driver.

By month's end, Yon updated his NHTSA case file with a memo. It said NHTSA had decided to limit the probe to incidents involving brief bursts of acceleration, and would exclude so-called "long duration" incidents in which cars allegedly continued racing down the road after a driver hit the brakes.



The reason: Investigators decided it would be more effective to isolate any possible defect by zeroing in on shorter incidents, a Transportation Department official said. The shorter incidents looked more like "pure cases of engine surging due to a possible defect," the official said. Longer incidents were excluded because they showed more signs of driver error such as mistaking the accelerator for the brake.

Quandt and Yon didn't respond to requests for comment.

Continued: Complaints roll in

1 | 2 | 3 | next >

[doug]

2/11/2010 12:15 PM ET
Toyota's deadly secrets
Continued from page 1
Of the 37 incidents, 27 were categorized as long-duration and not investigated. On July 22, 2004, the probe was closed because NHTSA had found no pattern of safety problems.

Complaints kept rolling in. In 2005 and 2006, NHTSA got hundreds of reports of unintended acceleration involving Toyotas, according to Safety Research & Strategies, a consumer-safety research firm. On two occasions, Toyota filed responses arguing that no defect or trends could be found in the complaints.

How good is your car insurance rate?
In a Nov. 15, 2005, letter to Quandt, Christopher Tinto, a Toyota liaison with the safety agency, asked NHTSA to drop a preliminary probe into sudden acceleration by the Camry and Lexus ES, saying "there is no factor or trend indicating that a vehicle or component defect exists." He used similar language in a June, 11, 2007, letter responding to a subsequent probe.

In March 2007, the agency opened a new probe, focusing on whether the gas pedal in the Lexus ES 350 sedan could get caught beneath heavy rubber floor mats sold as accessories. It looked at five crashes, including four multivehicle accidents.

NHTSA sent surveys to 1,986 owners of ES 350s. Six hundred responded, and 59 said they had experienced unintended acceleration. Thirty-five attributed the surge to a floor mat pressing down on the gas pedal. The rest either didn't specify or cited other possible explanations.

NHTSA officials worked on the probe with their main contact at Toyota, Christopher Santucci. The NHTSA team knew Santucci: He had worked there from 2001 to 2003. Tinto, Santucci's supervisor at Toyota, had worked at NHTSA in the past, too. Santucci and Tinto didn't respond to requests for comment.

At one point, Santucci brought a Lexus ES 350 to a parking lot outside Washington, D.C., for testing. Yon and Quandt raced across the lot, hitting 60 mph before jamming on the brakes to measure the force needed to stop.

Resistant to being told what to do
It's common for NHTSA to work cooperatively with all automakers in this way. NHTSA can do its own testing, but it generally relies on manufacturers to supply technical data. Its Office of Defects Investigation has only 57 employees to deal with some 35,000 complaints a year.

Carmakers "are almost self-regulated," said an auto-industry chief executive who has worked with NHTSA. Without makers' help, there's "no way for NHTSA to look into all these issues." To spur cooperation, the agency has the power to force recalls and fine companies for providing misleading information or not providing safety information in a timely fashion.


What's a Toyota owner to do?
Toyota for years has been one of the most difficult automakers for regulators to deal with because it is resistant to being told what to do, said Joan Claybrook, a former NHTSA administrator who later became president of consumer-advocacy group Public Citizen until stepping down last year. But she also blamed the agency's collaborative approach for undermining its role. "They have tremendous power and authority but they don't tend to use it."

A Transportation Department spokeswoman disputes that, saying: "NHTSA has the most active defect investigation program in the world. In the last three years alone (it) resulted in 524 recalls involving 23.5 million vehicles."

By August 2007, NHTSA wanted Toyota to issue a Lexus and Camry recall to remove the floor mats Toyota blamed for the acceleration problems. "Toyota assured us that this would solve the problem," said Nicole Nason, then NHTSA's administrator.

In their probe, NHTSA investigators asked Toyota, "Are you sure it's not the gas pedal?" Nason said. "They assured us it's just the floor mat."

Going airborne
Toyota says that, at that time, it had no indication of problems with the pedal design.

Toyota ended up recalling Camrys and ES 350s from 2007 and 2008 model years. Owners were told to bring the cars to dealerships to get new mats. The action involved 55,000 cars.

After the recall, reports continued trickling in that it may not have resolved the issue. One major case was 2008's spectacular fatal crash in Michigan.

On April 19 that year, Guadalupe Alberto, 77 years old, was driving a 2005 Camry on Copeman Boulevard, a residential street in Flint. She was traveling about 25 mph when the car accelerated to 80, according a lawsuit against Toyota in Michigan. The car raced about a quarter mile before going airborne and colliding with a tree, killing Alberto, according to the suit, in Genesee County circuit court. The suit remains under way.


Floor mats couldn't have been the cause. Alberto had removed hers days before the accident, said one of the attorneys handling the case against Toyota. The accident was similar in some ways to the "long duration" type excluded from NHTSA's first probe in 2004.

Continued: Replacing mats not enough

© 2010 Microsoft

[doug]

2/11/2010 12:15 PM ET
Toyota's deadly secrets
Continued from page 2
A year later, NHTSA was asked to open a new probe by a Minnesota man who said his Lexus ES 350 took off on a highway and raced for two miles before he regained control. Toyota filed a rebuttal, saying it believed a floor mat was the cause.

Separately, since December 2008 Toyota's European unit had been looking into a problem causing cars in Ireland and England to surge or fail to slow. After months of testing, Toyota found the culprit: a plastic part in the pedal mechanism also widely used in the U.S.

How good is your car insurance rate?
Toyota redesigned the pedals for new cars coming off the assembly line. But it didn't issue a recall in Europe or notify U.S. regulators. Nor did Toyota alert its U.S. unit to the situation in Europe, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Last month, Toyota's Sasaki said the company didn't alert U.S. regulators then because it didn't see in the U.S. specific consumer complaints about sticky pedals, although a few complaints started to come in by early autumn.

The Europe issue hasn't been linked to accidents and isn't related to sudden acceleration because it happens near idle speeds. Toyota says it's looking into other potential causes.

'A breakdown in communications'
Toyota is still very much run by its Japan headquarters, despite being active in the U.S. since 1957. Top leadership doesn't include U.S. executives. The Toyota officials who run the recall process are in Japan.

For reasons like these, Toyota often reacted relatively slowly to safety issues raised by NHTSA, according to three people familiar with Toyota's inner workings.

"What has really happened is a breakdown in communications within Toyota" between its D.C. office and Japan headquarters, said one of these people. "The Washington office didn't have the information it needed to provide to the government."


What's a Toyota owner to do?
In August 2009, another fatal accident in the U.S. put the problem in the spotlight. Mark Saylor, a California Highway Patrol officer, was driving a Lexus ES 350 near San Diego when it accelerated to more than 100 mph. As the car careened out of control, one occupant called 911 to report the emergency. The call ended when the car crashed.

Everyone in the car died, including Saylor, his wife, daughter and brother-in-law. A tape of the 911 call drew attention to the acceleration issue.

The Lexus, a loaner from a dealer that Saylor was driving while his car was being serviced, did have the all-weather mats. And a previous driver of the loaner had told the dealer the mat had hit the pedal.

At NHTSA, patience was wearing thin. Its deputy, Ronald Medford, summoned Toyota officials to a Sept. 25 meeting in Washington, and told them they needed to act faster to more fully resolve the mat problem. Replacing mats wasn't enough, he said. Toyota also had to alter its gas pedals to make sure they couldn't get caught on mats.

On Oct. 5, Toyota recalled 3.8 million vehicles to fix the floor-mat issue, its largest recall ever.

But tensions kept rising. On November 3, Toyota put out a statement saying NHTSA had concluded that "no defect exists" in the recalled vehicles. A day later, in an unusually public rebuke, NHTSA released its own statement calling Toyota's "inaccurate and misleading."

Obligations under US law
Around the same time, the two were at odds again over a completely different issue. Toyota recalled Tundra pickup trucks for a corrosion problem that could lead to the spare tire falling off. But the recall hadn't come as quickly as NHTSA wanted, according to people familiar with the matter. Toyota had also been reluctant to include corrosion issues affecting the fuel tank, one person said.

On January 8, Toyota amended its original recall to include the fuel-tank corrosion issue. In a letter to NHTSA. it stressed that it didn't consider the issue "a safety related defect."

Amid the clashes, NHTSA's Medford and other officials flew to Japan. On Dec. 15 they stood before about 100 Toyota executives and engineers and explained Toyota's obligation to comply with the U.S.'s defect-recall process, a Transportation Department official said.

Later, Medford met with a smaller group of Toyota executives. According to the official, Medford told them bluntly: Toyota was taking too long to respond to safety issues. He reminded them that Toyota is obligated under U.S. law to find and report defects promptly.

Sasaki, Toyota's quality chief, said the meeting included a "debate" in which NHTSA objected to Toyota's view that users needed to install the mats properly. NHTSA's response, he said, was Toyota couldn't expect that from every consumer. "NHTSA people expressed disbelief over Toyota's view, and we received some harsh words from them," he said.

On Jan. 4, NHTSA's new chief, Strickland, was sworn in. His first crisis walked in the door Jan. 19, when two Toyota executives told him that Toyota's Japan headquarters had known there was a flaw in the pedals, according to a person familiar with the situation.


A few days later, Toyota had the details of a 2.3-millon-vehicle recall worked out. But there was a hitch: Toyota didn't have enough parts in hand to make repairs immediately.

At times, NHTSA gives carmakers extra time to get replacement parts ready before recall notices go out. This time, it was too late. And regulators told Toyota it would have to stop selling cars. On Jan. 26, that's what Toyota did.

This story was reported by Kate Linebaugh, Dionne Searcey and Norihiko Shirouzu for The Wall Street Journal.

© 2010 Microsoft

[doug]

updated 7:44 a.m. ET Feb. 12, 2010
Autos
Most Prius owners stay loyal despite recalls
For some, however, safety concerns trump other attributes of hybrid

Engineer Mike Swenson of Auburn, Wash., still likes his Prius, despite Toyota's recall.
By Allison Linn
Senior writer
Video: Prius still a hit in Hollywood

So it occasionally has a problem braking. And yeah, maybe there’s an acceleration issue with some, too.

Nobody’s perfect, right?

For many Prius owners, the recent recalls involving the iconic hybrid vehicles have raised some concerns — but not enough to make them fall out of love with the quirky-looking, gas-sipping car.

Hundreds of Prius owners wrote to msnbc.com this week, and most said they were staying loyal to their beloved hybrid despite Toyota’s recent recalls for brake and acceleration problems.

Still, some said their faith in the car had been tested by the growing number of safety issues that Toyota has acknowledged involving the Prius and other vehicles in recent weeks.

Neither response comes as a surprise to David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. Prius owners tend to be devoted to the brand, he said, but there is one rule to remember about vehicle owners: Safety concerns trump all else.

“Prius has had very good loyalty, yeah, but this is the kind of thing that can literally destroy that loyalty,” Cole said.

'The finest automobile'
Robert Northerner is among the faithful. The 60-year-old high school teacher began noticing occasional problems with his brakes about two weeks after he bought his 2009 Prius. He took it to the dealer and was told the brakes were “adequate.”

That didn’t completely assuage his concerns, so Northerner learned to drive more cautiously, staying further away from other cars to make sure he had enough room to brake. Yet he has remained a happy and loyal customer and has even convinced four other people to buy a Prius, he said.

“It is without a doubt and unquestionably the finest automobile I have ever owned,” said Northerner, who previously drove a Mercury Grand Marquis and also has a Ford F-150 pickup truck.

Northerner appreciates the great gas mileage and said the car feels roomy inside and even handles well in the extreme cold and snowy conditions around Mehoopany, Pa., the small town where he lives.

“If I had to do it all over again and I could buy one car … I would run right out and buy another Prius, brakes or no brakes,” Northerner said.

Floor mats and brakes
Toyota has included Priuses made between 2004 and 2009 in a massive recall involving floor mats that could "entrap" the gas pedal and cause unintended acceleration.

Separately, the carmaker announced this week that it is recalling approximately 2010 Prius models to address occasional braking problems. Msnbc.com has reported that problems with Prius braking systems may extend to older vehicles as well, citing complaints to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration about earlier model years.

Many Prius owners said the problems that prompted the recalls simply aren’t worrisome enough to counterbalance what has otherwise been a very reliable car.

Mike Swenson, 57, bought the 2007 Prius in late 2006 mostly to save on gas, and the engineer was pleasantly surprised to find that the car exceeded his expectations both in terms of performance and gas mileage.

His car was involved in the floor mat recall, and he said the brakes have occasionally felt soft. But he would purchase another Prius.


“Because the performance of the car has exceeded my expectation, it probably makes me a little bit more tolerant of some of the problems,” he said.

Still, Swenson, who lives in Federal Way, Wash., said he does think that Toyota’s reputation has been tarnished by the way the company has handled the recalls. And he said he would consider switching to a U.S. carmaker for his next vehicle — if he could find an equivalent, fuel-efficient model.

‘Just a fun car’
Even some who have experienced brake failure say they are staying loyal to the car.

Wayne Knighton, 71, had only recently purchased his 2010 Prius last fall when the brakes appeared to momentarily fail after he drove over a manhole cover.


Knighton was frightened by the incident, but he said news that Toyota will be recalling and fixing the vehicles has put his worries to rest.

He loves how little gas the vehicle requires and has been impressed by how fast the car accelerates even in the mountains around Salt Lake City, where he lives.

“The last time I felt so good about a car was when I bought the brand new Volkswagen Bug when it came out,” Knighton. “It was just a fun car, and this reminds me of that.”


Cathy Hill, 47, knows well the effect a Prius can have on people. After she bought the hybrid in 2007, the environmental lawyer recalled how people started approaching her at gas stations to ask about the car.

Her 17-year-old son and his friends thought the car was cool, and the teenager wanted to drive it whenever he could. She said she enjoyed driving the Prius even though she doesn’t really like cars.

But Hill said the recent spate of recalls and Toyota’s slow response to the problems have prompted a change of heart. She no longer takes the car on longer trips and has barred her son from using it because she’s worried he could be injured.

“I’m very committed to the environmental attributes that a hybrid provides you with, but I’m not confident in the safety, and that’s a deal breaker with me,” said Hill, who lives outside of Albany, N.Y.

She’s thinking of trading the Prius in sooner than she had planned and is looking at other environmentally friendly vehicles instead, such as the forthcoming Chevy Volt or Volkswagen’s "clean diesel" models.

“I wouldn’t buy a Toyota,” she said. “I feel like the company is not fully trustworthy.”

The fact that there are now many other environmentally friendly vehicles coming to market could make people more likely to give up on the Prius following this incident, said Cole, of the Center for Automotive Research.

First-mover advantage
Still, branding expert Rob Frankel said Toyota is still enjoying first-mover advantage with that Prius, which was one of the earliest hybrid vehicles on the road and quickly became the ultimate status symbol for environmental friendliness and fuel efficiency.


Celebrities ranging from Leonardo DiCaprio to Larry David have embraced the Prius, image-conscious companies have rushed to add them to their corporate fleets and everyday drivers have created Web fan clubs and online forums.

Although Frankel thinks Toyota badly bungled its handling of the recalls, he expects many will stay loyal to the Prius brand. He said that’s largely because serious crashes appear to be rare.

Andy Folk replaced his Ford Taurus with a Prius in 2007, when gas prices were starting to spike in the Chicago area where he lives.


Since then, the IT consultant has put 82,000 miles on the car, and even convinced his mother and cousin to buy Priuses.

Folk, 27, said he has occasionally experienced the feeling that the brakes stop working momentarily, such as when he passes over a manhole or a crumbled part of the road. To compensate, he’s learned to slow down and brake earlier than with other vehicles, and he told his mom to do the same thing when she bought her car. But, he said, any new car takes some getting used to.

“To me it’s honestly not really that big of a deal,” he said.

© 2010 msnbc.com

[doug]

2/12/2010 3:00 PM ET
Should you buy a Toyota?
The recalled models are being repaired, but prices are softening -- creating tempting bargains.
By Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine
If you're thinking about buying a Toyota, contrarian as it sounds, the time to act is now. Or as soon as sales are back in full swing.

How good is your car insurance?
Prices for new and used Toyotas have taken a hit, but Kiplinger believes that once the fixes are in place and the media attention dies down, long-term resale values will rebound. At the same time, it would be shortsighted to trade in a Toyota while used-car values are depressed.

Forgive and forget
Toyota has a long history of quality and reliability. In 2009, J.D. Power gave 10 initial quality awards to Toyota or its Lexus brand, more than any other automaker.Toyota ranks 17th out of 20 auto manufacturers for the number of complaints per vehicle sold, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's complaint database. In other words, Toyota is near the bottom of the list for complaints.

But reports that Toyota was aware of the problems and stayed mum, prompting a public apology from Toyota president Akio Toyoda, have shaken customer loyalty.

"It's not really a product problem," says James Bell, executive market analyst for Kelley Blue Book, which supplies our resale values. "It's an image problem. These statistically small problems have taken on a very large perspective."

Even Consumer Reports, which temporarily suspended its recommendations of the recalled vehicles largely due to the halt in sales, is in a forgiving mood. "We anticipate being able to reinstate the recommendations once we are satisfied that the problems have been remedied," says auto editor Rik Paul.

Grab a deal?
Buyers in the market for new wheels have started to shun the brand, as well as sister nameplates Scion and Lexus. Kelley Blue Book predicts that new and used vehicle values will continue to soften as cars sit on dealers' lots.

That means lower prices for buyers, plus a lot more room to haggle. Kelley says that 2010 Prius models are selling for close to invoice price -- a $1,000 to $1,500 drop from sticker price. And even used Prius models unaffected by recalls have seen a 1.5% drop in value. Edmunds.com expects Toyota to offer goodwill incentives, probably on all models. You could also get a sweet deal on a used Toyota. Kelley is reporting that used cars now on dealers' lots have sunk in value by as much as 4.5%.

Already a Toyota owner?
Resist the urge to trade in your Toyota, at least for now. Several manufacturers (including General Motors, Ford and Chrysler) are offering $1,000 rebates for Toyota trade-ins, but the lower trade-in value will likely erase your savings. Edmunds reports that Toyotas affected by the recalls have taken as much as a 10% hit in trade-in value. The best thing to do is to get your vehicle fixed and wait a few months for values to settle before you decide to trade in or not.

Recalls for two forms of unintended acceleration -- pedal entrapment by floor mats and sticking accelerator pedals -- affect eight models, and the company even temporarily suspended sales at the end of January. Then the 2010 Prius was added to the list of recalls -- for a software glitch that affects the braking system. Now the best-selling Corolla is being investigated for possible steering problems.

Dealers have received parts and have begun fixing these recalled models, and some are already back on sale. Toyota has begun mailing letters to owners of the recalled vehicles letting them know when to bring in their cars for the fix, estimated to take about 30 minutes for the sticking accelerators. As a precaution, the company is installing a brake-override system -- to override the accelerator command should it get stuck -- across all its vehicles in the future.

To see if your vehicles is among those facing a recall, go here. If your vehicle is listed, contact your dealer with your VIN (the number listed at the base of your windshield and on the driver's-side doorjamb). If your vehicle has been recalled for improperly placed floor mats, remove them; if it has been recalled for a sticking accelerator, monitor your accelerator's response. Unless the pedal shows a tendency to be slow to return to the up position or it feels sticky at any point, you should be fine to drive the vehicle until it is fixed.

If your gas pedal sticks
If your vehicle begins accelerating on its own, Consumer Reports recommends that you put the car in neutral, so that no power is going to the wheels. Then apply the brakes steadily until you can stop the vehicle. Shut off the engine with the transmission in neutral and then put the car in park.

Do not pump the brakes; doing so can deplete the vacuum assist and require stronger brake pressure. Don't turn the vehicle off until you've stopped unless absolutely necessary -- that can lock up the steering.

[doug]

updated 7:46 p.m. ET Feb. 12, 2010
Autos
Toyota recalls 8,000 Tacoma trucks
Problem with drive shaft could cause vehicle to lose control

A Toyota Motor Corp Prius is shown at a dealership in Oita, southwestern Japan February 3, 2010. Toyota Motor Corp said on Wednesday its North American and Japanese dealers had received several dozen complaints over what drivers characterised as insufficient braking on the new Prius hybrid when driving over bumpy or frozen roads. The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Toyota is recalling about 8,000 Tacoma pickup trucks from the 2010 model year to fix a problem with the front drive shaft that could cause the vehicle to lose control.

The automaker told dealers Friday that a crack could develop that could lead to the front driveshaft separating and falling from the truck, causing the vehicle to lose control.

While small in number, the recall is the latest issued by Toyota, which has called back 8.5 million vehicles worldwide for faulty gas pedals and brakes. The recall involves 4-wheel drive Tacomas that were built from mid-December 2009 to early February 2010.

A notice to dealers says the part was manufactured by Dana Corp.

A Toyota spokesman says most of the vehicles are on dealer lots or in the distribution chain.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[doug]

updated 7:50 a.m. ET Feb. 17, 2010
Toyota Corolla hit with power steering complaints
Toyota says it will ‘take action’ if needed over possible power steering issue
The Associated Press
TOKYO - A Toyota official acknowledged Wednesday that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had received dozens of complaints about power steering problems in its hot-selling Corolla subcompact and that the auto giant would "take action" if necessary.

"If we find out that this issue involves the safety of the driver then we will consider a recall," Vice President Shinichi Sasaki said, but added the company hasn't heard anything from the NHTSA beyond that complaints have been lodged.

Sasaki said drivers may feel as though they were losing control over the steering, but it was unclear why. He mentioned problems with the braking system or tires as possible underlying causes of the steering problem.

There have been fewer than 100 complaints, the automaker said.

Company President Akio Toyoda, meanwhile, said he won't be attending the U.S. congressional hearing on the automaker's safety lapses, entrusting the job to U.S.-based executives — though he did say he would consider appearing if summoned. He said he wanted to focus his energies on improving quality worldwide.

"I trust that our officials in the U.S. will amply answer the questions," Toyoda told reporters Wednesday. "We are sending the best people to the hearing, and I hope to back up the efforts from headquarters."

He said Yoshi Inaba, who heads Toyota Motor Corp.'s North American unit, was more familiar with the U.S. situation and was the best executive to deal with the hearing. Toyoda said he was still making plans to go to the U.S. and dates have yet to be set.

Toyota has recalled 8.5 million vehicles globally during the past four months because of problems with sticking gas pedals, floor mats trapping accelerators and faulty brake programming.

The U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is holding a hearing on Feb. 24 on Toyota's gas pedal problems. The House Energy and Commerce Committee has scheduled one the next day.

Inaba, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and NHTSA Administrator David Strickland are expected to testify at both meetings. The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee has scheduled a March 2 hearing.

Toyoda reiterated his promise to put customers first in beefing up quality controls at the world's No. 1 automaker.

He promised a brake-override system in all future models worldwide that will add a safety measure against acceleration problems that are behind the recent massive recalls.

The system is a mechanism that overrides the accelerator if the gas and brake pedals are pressed at the same time.

"We are not covering up anything, and we are not running away from anything," Toyoda said.


Toyota has also commissioned an independent research organization to test its electronic throttle system, and will release the findings as they become available.

Toyota took full-page ads in major Japanese newspapers Wednesday to apologize for the massive recalls, most of which affect cars outside of Japan.

"We apologize from the bottom of our hearts for the great inconvenience and worries that we have caused you all," the black-and-white ads say.

Toyota has published similar ads of apology in U.S. papers. Toyota has also stopped airing TV ads in Japan for models affected by the recall, although it has continued them for other models.

Toyota in Japan had no immediate comment on the order Tuesday from the U.S. Transportation Department to hand over documents related to its massive recalls. The department wants to know how long the automaker knew of safety defects before taking action.


Toyota's U.S. unit said in a statement that it "takes its responsibility to advance vehicle safety seriously and to alert government officials of any safety issue in a timely manner."

"We are reviewing NHTSA's request and will cooperate to provide all the information they have requested," it said.

Toyota must respond within 30 to 60 days or face fines.

Reports of deaths in the U.S. connected to sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles have surged in recent weeks, with the alleged death toll reaching 34 since 2000, according to new consumer data gathered by the U.S. government.

Under federal law, automakers must notify the department's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration within five days of determining that a safety defect exists and promptly conduct a recall.

LaHood has said the government is considering civil penalties for Toyota over its handling of the recalls.

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