Toyota left with task of repairing vehicles, consumer trust
By: New York Times
Issue date: 2/8/10 Section: Opinion
Toyota has a lot of work to do to recover drivers' trust. The company has now recalled about three times the number of cars it sold in the United States and Canada last year. This hardly inspires confidence in its much-vaunted manufacturing and design prowess.
Toyota's troubles don't end there. Its response to thousands of complaints about uncontrolled acceleration in many of its cars and trucks was disturbingly slow and disturbingly short on transparency. And it initially kept consumers in the dark about problems with brakes on its Prius hybrid, now subject to a separate recall.
Recalls are common in the auto industry. Every automaker in the United States has faced complaints about sudden acceleration. Toyota vehicles have suffered more such instances. In 2008, they accounted for 52 of the 115 complaints to regulators about sudden acceleration. Over the last decade, 18 deaths have been associated with the problem in Toyotas - still, only a small fraction of the 40,000 annual highway fatalities.
Toyota has compounded these problems by failing to quickly, candidly or fully own up.
In 2007, after receiving complaints about unintended acceleration for years, the company determined that floor mats were getting caught in the accelerator pedals of some cars. It decided to recall 55,000 Camrys and Lexuses, only those with a particular type of mat. Toyota said that mats in other models were secured by clips.
Evidently they weren't secure enough. After a California highway patrolman was killed while driving a Lexus in August - and after being prodded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration - in November, Toyota warned drivers of some four million Toyota cars to remove driver-side mats. At the same time, Toyota claimed that the federal safety agency had found no defects in cars where the floor mat was compatible with the vehicle and properly secured.
That was false. The safety agency issued a strong rebuke. Three weeks later, Toyota recalled 4.3 million vehicles and said it would install "smart pedals" that would allow drivers to brake even if the gas pedal was pressed.
Toyota's troubles don't end there. Its response to thousands of complaints about uncontrolled acceleration in many of its cars and trucks was disturbingly slow and disturbingly short on transparency. And it initially kept consumers in the dark about problems with brakes on its Prius hybrid, now subject to a separate recall.
Recalls are common in the auto industry. Every automaker in the United States has faced complaints about sudden acceleration. Toyota vehicles have suffered more such instances. In 2008, they accounted for 52 of the 115 complaints to regulators about sudden acceleration. Over the last decade, 18 deaths have been associated with the problem in Toyotas - still, only a small fraction of the 40,000 annual highway fatalities.
Toyota has compounded these problems by failing to quickly, candidly or fully own up.
In 2007, after receiving complaints about unintended acceleration for years, the company determined that floor mats were getting caught in the accelerator pedals of some cars. It decided to recall 55,000 Camrys and Lexuses, only those with a particular type of mat. Toyota said that mats in other models were secured by clips.
Evidently they weren't secure enough. After a California highway patrolman was killed while driving a Lexus in August - and after being prodded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration - in November, Toyota warned drivers of some four million Toyota cars to remove driver-side mats. At the same time, Toyota claimed that the federal safety agency had found no defects in cars where the floor mat was compatible with the vehicle and properly secured.
That was false. The safety agency issued a strong rebuke. Three weeks later, Toyota recalled 4.3 million vehicles and said it would install "smart pedals" that would allow drivers to brake even if the gas pedal was pressed.
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