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Want America's Best Selling Midsized Sedan? You're Out of Luck for Now.
This has never happened before- never has an auto company actually halted domestic sales of cars due to a recall. Which recall? With Toyota, among the largest automakers in the world making millions of cars a year, well, they can have a lot of recalls.
The sticking accelerator pedal problem actually came to a head just a few months back as a family in a Lexus sedan were recorded losing control of their vehicle. Everyone was killed. But that problem, that recall, involved floormats that could cause the gas pedals to stick, involving over 4.2 million vehicles. This is slightly different, involving a faulty part, rather than a floormat.
Last week Toyota issued a recall involving some 2.3 million vehicles- spanning a good portion of it's domestic model line, but this morning their actually suspending the sales of these vehicles, and will halt production starting next week.
This problem could also spread to Europe, where the purported problem part, a gas pedal assembly mechanism is also used. Where is this part made? Supposedly from a US supplier. According to Toyota, the current recall involves vehicles made in US domestic plants, and not factories in Japan.
The automaker said the U.S. sales suspension includes the following models: the 2009-2010 RAV4, the 2009-2010 Corolla, the 2007-2010 Camry, the 2009-2010 Matrix, the 2005-2010 Avalon, the 2010 Highlander, the 2007-2010 Tundra and the 2008-2010 Sequoia.
The auto company said the sales suspension wouldn't affect Lexus or Scion vehicles. Toyota said the Prius, Tacoma, Sienna, Venza, Solara, Yaris, 4Runner, FJ Cruiser, Land Cruiser and select Camry models, including all Camry hybrids, would remain on the lots for sale.
According to AP sources, Toyota sold more than 34,000 Camrys in December, making the midsize sedan America's best-selling car. It commands 3.4% of the U.S. market and sales rose 38% from a year earlier. Sales of the Corolla and Matrix, a small sedan and a hatchback, totaled 34,220 last month, with 3.3% of the market and sales up nearly 55%from December of 2008.
Shares of Toyota stock fell 4.3% in Tokyo trading on Wednesday.
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So the problem is still with the gas pedal? Are those vehicles recalled in addition to being suspended?
Yes.
It's a digital gas pedal (no cable -- a computer chip and software). Wondering if it's a software problem?
Even if they work soundly, it would suck to be in a vicinity of an EMP blast while driving those things.
I don't know what an electromagnetic pulse would do but it doesn't sound helpful.
When reading about Toyota's decision to halt sales it sounds like it was their idea, but from what I'm hearing here and there, the gov ordered them to halt sales. That's quite a difference if it's true.
EMP (electro magnetic pulse) would render digital equipment, and therefore digital brakes, useless. Likewise, I wouldn't want to be in an airplane that uses electronic instead of hydraulic flight controls... especially during a lightning storm.
Finally, the real truth about Toyota is coming out. The cat is finally out of the bag about their true quality.
Over the years, they paid the MSM press to falsely inflated the perception of better quality and to hide their mistakes from wide-spread public view. Most people don't know the fact that they had millions of cars with engine sludging problems and that all of their engines in their pickup trucks had to be replaced because of design defects.
The quality and supposide innovation of Japanese car-makersd is as much of an illusion as that our economy could sustain housing bubbles forever. In the real world, Japanese quality is not really any better than an american companies vehicles - especially Ford's.
Japanese R&D is basically taking Detroit developed and conceived ideas that were disgarded and placing them on Japanese vehicles. The Japanese are copiers and not developers.
American people need to open their eyes and really think hard before they buy foreign. Buying all these Toyotas, Hondas, KIAs and others have done irepairable damage to our economy and will continue if we don't wise up. Go out and buy a Ford - a company that looked to itself to make it without government help.
Really? The whole Flag-waving, American made era ended a couple of years ago, did someone miss the boat?
The fact of the matter is, yes, Toyota screwed up. Yes, this is going to cost them. Are Japanese car makers still the best out there? -- yes. No underfunded pension, no $60+ hour workers who sit around and play pool and drink all day. Yes, buy American. Buy SUVs, buy bigger, buy more!
Does that sound familiar?
Every Ford and GM car I ever owned did irrepairable damage to my wallet.
I'll stick to Honda, thank you -- if Detroit ever wakes up and tells the unions to go screw themselves and get back to producing the best cars, I'll come back and buy American first.
Till then, I'm a wise consumer buying the best possible product for the lowest possible price....capitalism works when it's tried.....
Jingoism in commerce is just as bad as jingoism in war. I'm not "buyin' 'Mercan" just to save "the economy". My fiatscos are gonna go to the guy that builds me the most reliable and efficient car regardless of where he lives in the map lines.
The worst cars I ever owned were a Honda Accord and a Jeep Liberty, both purchased new in the last 10 years. My 1986 Ford Escort was close behind those in the junk category.
The best car I ever owned is the Chevy I drive today, with the runner up being a Honda Civic I had a few years ago. The runner up best cars were a Plymouth and an Eagle.
I'm not seeing any real pattern of brand, manufacturer or place of manufacture. Yes, I know this isn't a statistically significant sample, and no, I wouldn't be rushing to buy a Daewoo or Daihatsu. But a lot of the "my brand is better than yours" stuff is just posturing and random chance.
So, when did you get laid-off by GM or Chrysler?
Sorry bud, my wife and I have owned 8-cars over the course of our 21-years of marriage - 4 Fords, 1 GM, 1 Hyundai, and 2 Toyotas (our current cars). Of these, precisely 4 have made it over 100k miles (1 Ford, 1 Hyundai, 2 Toyotas - still going, without a hitch).
The other 4 (3 Fords, 1 GM) barely made it to 80k and were disasters from almost Day One. So methinks I'm going to pass on so-called "American" cars for a little while.
A Ford is the only car that ever stranded me someplace far from home, and it is also the only car that I strained my back on pushing it out of a fucking intersection on a cold, slushy day (not the same car, sadly). I have no idea what you are talking about with regard to Toyota trucks all having their engines replaced--the engine in my Tacoma has never been replaced. The Tacomas do have the frame rot issue, but that problem stemmed from an AMERICAN supplier, just like the current problem does. So get your facts straight. The GM bailouts sealed the fate for my interest in American made cars. I'll never buy another one, I don't care what else I have to buy, and that includes Ford (raises a giant middle finger to Ford).
Do you consider The Economist MSM? I read an article there a few weeks ago highlighting the woes at Toyota. Even the Toyota head honcho acknowledges they have serious problems. They got sloppy 'cause they got overwhelmed by the development cycle and too many models.
It's an American part that fail. The epic fail also affects American companies like GM who also happen to use the that same American part.
The lesson is to ask for a car completely made in a Japanese-owned company with parts completely made in Japanese-owned companies.
I think the real problem is an over supply of cars. Perhaps they are throwing a bone to Ford, GM, and Chrysler intentionally.
Japan is still under the thumb of the US.
Are you telling me the Japanese are incapable of solving this problem and have not done so already?
They make the best designed cars in the world, still.
Something is wrong here.
They're more than capable of fixing it --- if anything this is a finger in the eye of American unionized workers.
"Look for the Union label" indeed....
"If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do it...."
What ever was the proven cause of the Audi 5000s accelerator problem?
If memory serves me correctly- the problem with Audi circa 1986 wasn't with the accelerator pedal in the Audi- but rather the gated automatic gear lever- and people un-knowingly reversing when they meant to go forward, or going forward when they intended to park.
Travis, good morning.
The "unintended acceleration" experienced by Audi (and, to a lesser extent, other German car manufacturers) was the VDO designed idle stabilization system. It utilized a small electric motor to vary airflow in a throttle valve bypass system which was intended to react to differing loads and keep the idle speed constant. The original valves defaulted to fully open when some problem occurred (such as a faulty wire connection or a lack of signal from the valve's control unit.) The fix was to re-design the valve to default to closed when a problem occurred. In that instance, one had only to deal with a low idle (or no idle at all) rather than an idle speed of 2,00 to 2,500 rpm.
The shift lock system, designed by Audi and pretty much standard equipment anymore on other cars with automatic transmissions, was designed to be sure one's foot was on the brake when shifting into gear. There were problems with particularly big-footed drivers mis-applying the throttle for the brake and taking out persons and property in the process. Once the idle stabilizer problem was addressed and the shift lock was installed reports of runaway acceleration stopped. Too late for Audi as the reputational damage was already done.
Best regards,
RF
Hello?
Why don't they just put the accelerator assembly that is in the lexus models into the toyota models?
"The auto company said the sales suspension wouldn't affect Lexus or Scion vehicles."
Problem solved.
Have a good day.
You guys aren't thinking.
So Toyota has a defect and recalls and suspends models that are affected, which are models made ONLY in the U.S. and not in Japanese plants.
See this for what it is: Toyota has a supply overcapacity issue vis a vis current American demand, and is merely scaling back its U.S. operations. In other words, the American consumer isn't spending like everything thinks and hopes he is.
+1. Good to see that at least one other person read between the lines.
Not so fast.
http://www.detnews.com/article/20100127/AUTO01/1270400/1148/rss25
Read on, they were asked to.
The floor mat problem was total BS. It seems very likely the problem lies in the DBW (drive by wire) system. DBW is the crap on most new cars that replaces the gas pedal mechanism with a computer that controls how the car accelerates. DBW also takes all the fun out of driving as the inherent lag time between pressing the gas pedal and the engine revving can seem like a lifetime.
The floor mat problem was total BS. It seems very likely the problem lies in the DBW (drive by wire) system. DBW is the crap on most new cars that replaces the gas pedal mechanism with a computer that controls how the car accelerates. DBW also takes all the fun out of driving as the inherent lag time between pressing the gas pedal and the engine revving can seem like a lifetime.
Been hearing rumblings about it being a software issue not mechanical. If true Toyota is screwed. Would affect every drive by wire gas powered car in their fleet.
This is Toyota learning from Ford........how not to run a company.
Remember Ford and the exploding station-wagons?
The whole cocksucking board should have been jailed.
Regards.
That is supposed to increase US savings rate, right?
Sounds very suspicious. How could the same mechanical problem exist all the way from a RAV4 to the Tundra? I suspect it's an Engine Control Unit (ECU) or accelerator pedal sensor issue. These calibration software flashes do hick up once in a while.
Toyota is taking the path of the "old" US car industry by delivering 1-2 models in every segment. As you do that the quality lacks because you are getting further away from your core values as a company. Honda has better quality (IMHO) right now but that is as much to do with their being years behind the timeline of Toyota since they are newer to the car business. But if you have seen any of their Playskool plastic interiors and the recent CRX/CRZ replacement, they too are on the slow path Toyota has taken. This helps to level the playing field for Ford and in the near future GM with a tough CEO finally in place.
+1. Good to see that at least one other person read between the lines.
the commercials of car manufacturers say (literally) everything about them ... TM is pristine & perfect with an excellent vision statement and ethos-laden brand identity clauses, whereas F / GM / Chrysler each have THE worst ad campaigns, chock full of terrible pathos and hackneyed / inaccurate vitriol. there simply could not be a more stark difference between TM's mktg campaign and F / GM / Chrysler's terrible ads.
looks like even the japanese corporations are cutting corners these days :)
Going by the title alone, I was not aware there was a supply problem with GM, Ford or Chrysler.
The title says one thing, but the full story just describes a Toyota recall. You still can get any best-selling car that was designed in the US that has a Detroit(and not a Southern, Japanese, or European) provenance. Now if you were talking about a best-selling Japanese golf-cart, the content would have been accurate.
I guess it's a good day to be driving an actual car (Northstar powered Oldsmobile) by a company that knows how to make a car (GM).
According to Toyota, the current recall involves vehicles made in US domestic plants, and not factories in Japan.
They used the same design from Japan. Slight regional differences exist, but essentially the same golf cart. Throw in a turbo into a golf cart, you still have a golf cart. Put tons of bling in it, call it Scion, and you just have a shiny golf cart with a ton of Chinese junk.
Their truck sales do not atone for it in any way.
Toyota: Moving you forward, even if you pressed the brake.
Seth- the top three best selling mid-sized cars in America changes from month to month between the Honda Accord, the Toyota Camry and maybe a Ford Fusion or Taurus thrown in for good measure. And the purported recall is being sourced (so far) to a US-supplied part, installed in cars built in US factories.
That's not to say that I don't think this is possibly a political move to boost domestic sales through negative propaganda... (Oh, wait, did I say that?)
But in actuality- the Camry is a mostly US Domestic Toyota- designed for and mostly built in the U S of A.
But if they put a Northstar in it- it would go... really really fast.
But in actuality- the Camry is a mostly US Domestic Toyota- designed for and mostly built in the U S of A.
I'd sure like to ask the folks in Kentucky(if it's still Kentucky) how much of that Camry has changed from the Japanese blueprints. While I don't expect to get exact down-to-the-part-design level, I would expect to hear of the differences between the two similar cars.
But if they put a Northstar in it- it would go... really really fast.
If you don't mind the metalwork and don't mind firming up the 4T* transmission to handle the extended stress.
While there are indeed faults with the Northstar series, it's about the only way to get a 8 cylinder engine out of Detroit(in a car, and not a truck).
I'm just not exactly a fan of the "throw in an I-4 for fuel efficiency, a turbo to make up for the lost cylinders, a nav system, put it into a small car chassis, and call it a day" process that the transplant manufacturers take. That's why I call them (glorified) golfcarts and not cars.
When they can make something like a 90's Impala or a Crown Victoria(read:large, beefy RWD car that makes no apology to environmentalists) and target it to the lower-than luxury crowd, then I might be willing to give them a second look.
To be fair:
These days, they've even bastardized the Regal twice over by making it an Opel with a turbo I-4 for the GS package. It's already bad enough to use an Opel shell, it's worse that they've made it par with the Chinese I-4 Regals. Body-styling I can forgive, I-4's with turbos are a cardinal sin.
How is the head gasket holding up on your Northstar? lol. And I wouldn't really call an Aurora a real car.
The government plays a role in this fiasco - it seems a lot of car companies have been under the gun to boost fuel efficiency. Moving to this electronic gas pedal versus the previous mechanical (which worked very reliably Thank You), helped them with efficiency but performance is another story as you are now seeing !!!
God help our lawmakers as they drive the world down !!
I remember the inflationary 70s and worked in the retail trade at the time. We were unable to mark-up old inventory or serious fines would be impossed or threat of business shut down.
This could well be a pre-emptive move by Toyota to hold inventory in advance of huge mark-ups coming after a huge currency injection..............folks with money in the bank did not win over that time frame in our history. Hard assets won big! Copper, Gold, Silver, Lead.......you get the picture.
Here in Green Bay we have one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the country, and they just put the finishing touches on a massive expansion, a bit over the top in my opinion (they have an actual biplane hanging from the ceiling in their showroom... you can see it from HWY 172). All of their ads tout 'Toyota quality'... the job of the sales people just got a lot harder. Also, Lemieux is a Toyota-only dealership so they've got no other brands to fall back on. Oops..
Travis, Tyler, everyone,
The floor mats have nothing to do with it and have been scapegoated.
The truth is that Toyota has some serious design/part issues and I bet that they have known about it for a while. When the CA accident first happened, word on the street was - and I mean from very good and confidential sources - that Toyota hired the biggest heavy hitter on all NHTSA issues.
I knew something was coming, but didn't expect it to be this big.
Toyota already has the issue causing the problems in hand.
They get their Accelerator Pedals from TWO vendors,one's fine, and the other needs to be shimmed.
Models on the lot with the pedal w/no issues, are still on lots for sale.
As for longevity of American v.s. Foreign vehicles, I have owned both.
In the past 3-4yrs, American cars, by and large are just as reliable, and will go just as far, and live as long as Foreign ones.
I have a 2000 Ford Explorer, with 199,000 miles on it.
I have spent approx $2,500.00 on repairs(other than tires/brakes, normal wear and tear.
Have a 2002 Acura TLS, mechanically, it's been fine(warranty vists were the most of ANY vehicle ever owned).
Cosmetic, and QC of interior/exterior items.
Would never own one again.
Had a Mercedes mechanic, tell me IF Americans serviced their American cars, like the Foreign cars demand, they would go just as far, and last just as long.
Have many customers run their GM/Ford vehicles 200-350k miles.....still going.
THe disparity between the quality, is NO Longer an issue.
People believe the media, and tales from the late70's/80's American QC stds, to todays....light years difference.
Right on! Those who think foreign cars are better quality only because their parts fail during warranty periods and they pay nothing for the repair. This explains why most foreign vehicles are sold shortly after the warraty expires and the expense of repairs are then borne by the owner.
American cars, with routine maintenance will run 300,000 miles plus and still look relatively in good shape. One only has to look at the NYC taxi fleet where Ford Crown Victorias regularly pull 400,000 miles vs. the foreign vehicles in the fleet that are completely done by 100,000 miles. The expenses of the foreign vehicles is significantly more than for the Crown Victoria.
While the usage patterns might differ between fleet/non-fleet use, you're otherwise correct.
The only problem is that the Crown Victoria will be a fleet-only model.
Also, hand it to Toyota,,,,,,,,,,,,
They did the cost of payout per incedent ratio, and decided to do the correct thing. NOT sell until it was taken care of, rather than allow folks to continue to roll the dice.
Unlike others we know.Recall cost, v.s. Lawsuit payout's..............
Screw the dead victims.
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