Gov't still hearing complaints about fixed Toyotas

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By KEN THOMAS

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Transportation Department is hearing from some Toyota owners who say they're still having trouble with unintended acceleration after their recalled cars were repaired.

David Strickland, the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, says the agency is contacting these consumers to find out what's happening and make sure Toyota is doing everything possible to make its vehicles safe.

Strickland says in a statement that if owners are still experiencing sudden acceleration after taking their cars to the dealership, "we want to know about it."

So far, the government has received a limited number of acceleration complaints from the Toyota owners whose floor mats or gas pedals already have been fixed. Toyota recalled more than 8 million vehicles.



Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20100303/D9E7A0F01.html

[SemiCharmedQuark]

1. My mom has a Toyota and has had a Toyota since she bought her first car in the 80s

She's done with them after this fiasco. Apparently it was a big pain in the ass to get the issue resolved. She called because her camry was one of the cars for the recall. They told her to wait until she received a letter telling her to come in. Weeks later when no letter had arrived she called back and they said she should have brought it in already.

They're really screwed themselves with this. As someone else mentioned, that myth of "Toyota quality" is gone.

[DJ13]

2. So much for the cheap fixes

Now about those faulty ECU's.........

[Joanne98]

3. Gov't still hearing complaints about fixed Toyotas

Source: AP


WASHINGTON (AP) -- Some Toyota owners say they're still having trouble with unintended acceleration after their recalled cars were repaired, and the Transportation Department said Wednesday it is looking into their complaints.

David Strickland, the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said in a statement the agency is reaching out to consumers about the complaints "to get to the bottom of the problem and to make sure Toyota is doing everything possible to make its vehicles safe."

"If Toyota owners are still experiencing sudden acceleration incidents after taking their cars to the dealership, we want to know about it," Strickland said.

The government has received a limited number of acceleration reports from the Toyota owners whose floor mats or gas pedals have been fixed but the fresh complaints raise new questions about whether Toyota's remedy will solve the problem. Toyota and the government are investigating potential electrical problems as part of the Japanese automaker's recall of more than 8 million vehicles worldwide.


Read more: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Govt-still-hearing-complaints-apf-2087001762.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=2&asset=&ccode=

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Toyota is lying.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. They sure are.

Lying, scummy, SOB's.

[Lerkfish]

5. its been shown to be a programming error -- the recall fixes won't fix it.

[HopeHoops]

13. Yeah, but a silly little metal shim is cheaper and the owner can SEE something!

Either they don't want to admit that they can't figure out the bug in the software OR they outsourced the programming to India and the original programmers are all working in the US on H1-B visas now so they aren't available to correct their work.

The stupid shim is just a way to pacify people to buy time.

[SPedigrees]

6. Toyota is scum. They used to build quality vehicles.

We loved our 1976 corona and still love our 1997 RAV 4. I wouldn't take one of their new crap cars if it was offered to me for free.

[Bonhomme Richard]

7. When I read that they were fixing it with a shim I cracked up. n./t

[RamboLiberal]

8. No Fix? Trouble with Some Repaired Toyotas

Source: CBS News

Some Toyota owners say they are still having trouble with unintended acceleration after their recalled cars were repaired, and the Transportation Department said Wednesday it is looking into their complaints.

David Strickland, the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said in a statement the agency is reaching out to consumers about the complaints "to get to the bottom of the problem and to make sure Toyota is doing everything possible to make its vehicles safe."

"If Toyota owners are still experiencing sudden acceleration incidents after taking their cars to the dealership, we want to know about it," Strickland said.

NHTSA has identified ten post-recall allegations of unintended acceleration and continues to screen incoming complaints, an agency spokeswoman said late Wednesday.

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Stewart Stogel, 49, said his 2009 Camry accelerated to about 15 mph (24 kph) on a street near his home on Saturday, five days after a dealership trimmed the gas pedal and installed new brake override software as part of the floor mat recall. The car didn't stop for several seconds even though he pressed on the brakes. Stogel said he barely avoided going down an embankment and hitting a wall. a wall and nearly went down an embankment.



Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/03/national/main6263178.shtml?tag=stack

[spin]

9. Of course people are having problems with their "repaired" Toyotas...

the repair didn't fix the problem.

Toyota is in some deep shit and they still keep digging themselves deeper.

It takes years and years to build up a good reputation as a quality manufacturer, but you can lose it all overnight. As we used to say at work, "You can get 1000 at-a-boys but one "ah, shit" cancels them all out."

[PSPS]

10. They'll do ANYTHING to avoid replacing the millions of defective ETC's

[madrchsod]

11. the problem is the design....

there`s no way to fix the problem. if they replaced every part they will still have defects. they built a system that will always have inherent defects. this would`t be a problem on a non-critical system but.....

[Frank Cannon]

12. Has Toyota's senior leadership completely lost their minds?

It was pretty obvious that the cheap pedal fix was not going to take care of the actual problem that is happening. Did Toyota think that they were going to get a placebo effect out of their recall? That if the acceleration problem happened again, the owner of the car would just shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, I had the pedal fixed, so it must just be my imagination"? Did they think that this little quick-and-dirty "solution" was going to stop the lawsuits from happening?

I just don't get what they were thinking.

[HopeHoops]

14. Your problem is that you assume they WERE thinking.

The "fix" was obviously dreamed up by the marketing department, not engineering.

[Elmore Furth]

15. Toyota has been stingy on sharing crash-recorder data

It looks as though Toyota has long known more than they were willing to admit and were supressing information from their "black boxes."

Toyota has for years blocked access to data stored in devices similar to airline "black boxes" that could explain crashes blamed on sudden unintended acceleration, according to a review of lawsuits nationwide and interviews with auto-crash experts.

The review found that Toyota has been inconsistent — and sometimes contradictory — in revealing what the devices record and don't record, including critical data about whether the brake or accelerator pedals were depressed at the time of a crash.

In some lawsuits, when pressed to provide recorder information, Toyota either settled or provided printouts with the key columns blank.

Toyota's black-box information is emerging as a critical legal issue amid the recall of more than 8 million vehicles by the world's largest automaker. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said this week that 52 people have died in crashes linked to accelerator problems, triggering an avalanche of lawsuits.

There was no initial mention of brakes, a key point in the sudden-acceleration problem. When asked specifically about brake information, Toyota responded that its EDRs (event data recorders) do record "data on the brake's position and the anti-lock brake system."

That does not square with information obtained by attorneys in a deadly crash last year in Southlake, Texas, and in a 2004 accident in Indiana that killed a woman.

Toyota has been stingy on sharing crash-recorder data