Tag: toyota

It’s Complicated: Concerned Citizen Drops a Dime on Toyota

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As we all should have learned nine years ago from the Ford Explorer-Firestone tire maelstrom, it’s not often just one thing that creates a catastrophe of epic proportions.  Defect issues that rise to the top of the charts are frequently the result of a multitude of problems that align to create a widespread hazard.

In the Ford-Firestone case, it was the marriage of tires with several poor design characteristics compounded by manufacturing problems and the application on an unstable vehicle.  Add in the huge number of Explorers sold and the tires’ longevity, which kept them on the roads long enough to fail, and the result was rollovers, injuries and deaths.  Now comes Toyota, with thousands of unintended acceleration complaints across different models, makes and model years and an easy-one-size-fits-all root cause: floormats.

That explanation is swiftly becoming unraveled as quick-thinking owners – like the 2007 Avalon owner from New Jersey who managed to wrest his out-of-control vehicle right to the dealership, where the evidence was revving and smoking in front of the tech’s eyes and couldn’t be floor-matted away. (see Sudden Acceleration in Reverse).

Now a “Concerned Citizen” in Franklin, Kentucky has offered NHTSA another interesting piece of the puzzle: broke throttle body shafts.

On November 27, about a month after NHTSA closed its latest Toyota unintended acceleration investigation with another pedal interference conclusion, some Kentuckian’s conscience got the better of him/her. Here is the anonymous note addressed the then-Acting Administrator Ronald Medford:

“There are potentially hundreds of Toyota and Nissan vehicles driving American highways with cracked shaft throttle bodies. Japanese management up to and including company president was aware of the cracked shaft problem and told everyone to be quiet about this problem.

The failure mode on DFMEA for broken throttle shaft is no throttle control and potential wide open acceleration. The Toyota floor mats caused American deaths. Will you sit on this information and possibly cause more American deaths? It bothers me that I did not tell anyone sooner. I have another throttle body in same condition that can be sent to Automotive News.

Concerned Citizen”


Coincidentally, Franklin Precision Industry (FPI) in Franklin, KY manufactures throttle bodies for Toyota and Nissan.  FPI is part of Aisan Industry Co. Ltd., a large automotive supplier based in Japan, with its major shareholders Toyota Motor Corporation, at 35 percent and Toyota Industries Corporation at 18 percent.

NHTSA didn’t place the potential whistle-blower’s letter in the public file until Jan. 4.

Dear Concerned Citizen: Thanks for the tip.  We’d like to see that cracked throttle body shaft – and we promise to investigate swiftly.

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Toyota Sudden Acceleration in Reverse

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Earlier this week, The Safety Record reported another Toyota SUA incident involving a 2007 Avalon and a New Jersey driver who managed to get his over-accelerating vehicle to the dealership with smoking brakes and an engine at full throttle. For those of you who missed it:

This owner had experienced several unintended acceleration incidents – incidents in which the vehicle accelerated without driver input.  The most recent occurred on Dec. 29 as he drove on the highway. The man was unable to stop the vehicle with the brakes alone, but he was able to shift the vehicle into Neutral. As the engine continued to race to full-throttle, he immediately called the local Toyota dealer, about two miles away, to alert them he was bringing the vehicle to their lot.  He drove the car to the dealer by shifting from Neutral to Drive, foot on the brake, with the engine at full throttle. Continue reading →

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Toyota Sudden Unintended Acceleration Complaints Update

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Safety Research & Strategies has completed our latest review of Toyota unintended acceleration complaint data.  Our database consists of incidents from the following sources:

  • Consumer complaints to NHTSA
  • Toyota-submitted claims from several NHTSA investigations into unintended acceleration
  • Incidents reported by media organizations
  • Consumer contacts made to our firm and other firms that are reporting incidents they have received.

Every effort has been made to identify duplicate records and combine them.  However, often the reports do not provide enough detail to link incidents to other reports.  There are likely some duplicates among our records – if there are, they are few.

SRS’s database consists only of incidents reported from 1999 to the present (regardless of model year).  We have defined unintended acceleration as any incident in which the complainant reported an engine acceleration that was unintended – regardless of whether the car was in gear.  We understand that this is a broader inclusion than others have considered; however, because we are still at a stage of trying to understand the incidents we believe this inclusiveness will help us discern vehicle years / models and incident types that we may want to investigate further.

Table 1 below is a summary of the data:

Toyota Pedal Fix Dress Rehearsal

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In early December 2005, Toyota learned of two early model Lexus IS250 with accelerator pedals “out of tolerance” – meaning the pedal could become stuck. One instance occurred during a dealer pre-delivery inspection and a second was reported by Toyota Canada during transportation at the port facility. The automaker had received no complaints in the U.S. or Canada.

Nonetheless, Toyota was on it like a shot:

Continue reading →

Toyota announces a Fix for Sudden Acceleration: Focus on Stuck Mats

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After years of applying band aids to its Sudden Unintended Acceleration problem, Toyota will finally offer a vehicle-based remedy to fix SUA problems involving floor mats that can entrap the accelerator pedals in eight Toyota and Lexus models.  The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced this morning that

Toyota plans to reconfigure the accelerator pedal on 3.8 million vehicles going back to the 2004 model year.  Other fixes include modifying the floor area around the pedal and in some models, installing a brake-to-idle override that allows the driver to quickly stop a vehicle in an unintended acceleration incident and newly-designed replacement driver- and front-passenger side all-weather mats. Continue reading →

Not So Fast…

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Toyota’s metaphorical accelerator apparently jammed yesterday in its rush to declare itself not guilty on all charges of sudden unintended acceleration in its mass market and luxury lines. The automaker issued a letter affirming its innocence to its customers on the occasion of NHTSA dropping yet another investigation into SUA in Lexus vehicles and blaming the problem on accessory floor mats.

But NHTSA was just as quick in its reaction. Yesterday afternoon, it delivered the smackdown.

Here’s the official statement via DOT Press Secretary Sasha Johnson:

“Toyota has announced a safety recall involving 3.8 million vehicles in which the accelerator pedal may become stuck at high vehicle speeds due to interference by the driver’s side floor mat, which is obviously a very dangerous situation. Toyota has written to vehicle owners stating that it has decided that a safety defect exists in their vehicles and asking owners to remove all floor mats while the company is developing a remedy. We believe consumers should follow Toyota’s recommendation to address the most immediate safety risk. However, removal of the mats is simply an interim measure, not a remedy of the underlying defect in the vehicles. NHTSA is discussing with Toyota what the appropriate vehicle remedy or remedies will be. This matter is not closed until Toyota has effectively addressed the vehicle defect by providing a suitable remedy.”

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The Other Side of Occam’s Razor: Electronic Glitches

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Pedal entrapment may be the easiest explanation for Sudden Unintended Acceleration events in Toyota and Lexus vehicles, but lost in the battle of the floor mats is widespread acknowledgement by automakers, electronics experts and suppliers that electronics regularly cause all kinds of headaches for manufacturers and consumers.

At a 2004 industry conference, Mercedes Benz’s vice president for electrical and electronics and chassis development. Steven Wolfsreid “railed against the temptation to overload vehicles with electronic functions that are useless to the customer,” according to an Automotive News story. The German automaker had removed 600 electronic functions from its vehicles because of quality concerns that were damaging its reputation and ticking off its customers. Electronics are challenging to integrate into a vehicle’s electrical architecture, he said in his 20-minute presentation, and what works well in isolation can be a disaster in combination with other electronic components.

Wolfsreid’s frustration is a natural outgrowth on the explosion of on-board vehicle electronics. According to a Siemens VDO Automotive report estimate in 2004, electronics was the fastest growing sector in the industry with the total value of such systems expected to reach $3.8 billion in 2010. A recent surge in the demand for small cars had blunted the steady upwards trajectory for the cost of Electronic Control Units, according to a new report, entitled “Automotive System Demand Forecast 2007 to 2016: Small Car Strength Hits Short-Term Electronics Demand” by the Boston firm Strategy Analytics.

Nonetheless, accompanying the short-term growth spurt in vehicle electronics has been a corresponding rise in the number of warranty claims and defects.  JD Powers data has shown that as the number of electronic functions a vehicle has rises, so do and the number of defects. German electronics supplier Robert Bosch has reiterated that claim in a trade-pub article on the issue:

“”There is a direct correlation between the number of electronic functions and the number of defects per vehicle,” claims Franz Fehrenbach, chairman of the board of management at Robert Bosch GmbH (Stuttgart, Germany). “If the value of electronics content per vehicle doubles in the next five to 10 years as predicted, it isn’t hard to imagine what that means for the number of defects if this trend line holds true.”

The increase in microprocessor power, the complexity of software itself exponentially increased by the automotive industry’s strategy of creating separate ECUs, each with its own software for each new system, rather than integrating them in to a dominant system have all contributed to rising warranty costs, tied to vehicle electronics.

While several articles have documented the problems, there has been less written on the solutions. Peugeot’s Car Care website neatly captures the tech/consumer experience, when the electronic glitch is intermittent.

“Walk into any auto repair shop and ask the mechanics what intermittent electronic problems mean to them, and if and if they don’t get real graphic with their answer, then either they don’t do electrical repairs, or they have the patience of a saint. At the very least they will tell you that intermittent problems are headaches. A day at the shop might start something like this. The customer tells the service writer that the vehicle works one minute and not the next. The service writer states this on the repair order. The mechanic checks it out and the vehicle operates fine, so no problem found is written on the repair order. The customer gets the vehicle back and the same thing happens. Now the customer has a headache, he goes back to the service writer who also now has a headache. And it doesn’t take him to long to give the mechanic a headache. I’ll say right now that sometimes no matter how hard all involved work to resolve this problem, it can take some time and patience to find an intermittent problem.”

The automotive industry has acknowledged the issue, now all we need is for it to devote time and patience toward solving it.

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Toyota Sudden Unintended Acceleration

NHTSA Pronounces and Toyota Pounces: It’s the Floor Mats, Stupid

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Showing admirable restraint, Toyota waited a whole five days before trumpeting the closing of Defect Petition 09-001 as proof positive “that no defect exists in vehicles in which the driver’s floor mat is compatible with the vehicle and properly secured.”

In a letter to its customers, Toyota referred to NHTSA’s “extensive technical review of the issue, including interviews with consumers who had complained of unwanted acceleration, NHTSA concluded that …the only defect trend related to vehicle speed control in the subject vehicles involved the potential for accelerator pedals to become trapped near the floor by out-of-position or inappropriate floor mat installations.”  Toyota’s press release went on to say:

“This is the sixth time in the past six years that NHTSA has undertaken such an exhaustive review of allegations of unintended acceleration on Toyota and Lexus vehicles and the sixth time the agency has found no vehicle-based cause for the unwanted acceleration allegations.

The question of unintended acceleration involving Toyota and Lexus vehicles has been repeatedly and thoroughly investigated by NHTSA, without any finding of defect other than the risk from an unsecured or incompatible driver’s floor mat, said Bob Daly, TMS senior vice president.”

Some of this is actually true. The agency has not found a vehicle-based defect that is causing unwanted acceleration.  It doesn’t mean there isn’t one – it just means that the agency hasn’t found it.  By any standard, the agency investigations are far from the thorough and can be accurately described as cursory by anyone with a passing understanding of defect investigation.

Here’s NHTSA’s summary of one of those “thorough” investigations into Toyota Tacoma SUA:

“ODI reviewed the petition, assessed VOQs, interviewed persons who filed VOQs, tested the vehicle, and reviewed Toyota’s response to an agency Information Request. The complaints fell into three groups. A majority of the complaints may have involved the Tacoma’s throttle control system. Some complaints did not involve a failure of the throttle control system. For the remaining reports, although there may have been an issue with the throttle control system as one possible explanation, we have been unable to determine a cause related to throttle control or any underlying cause that gave rise to the complaint. For those vehicles where the throttle control system did not perform as the owner believes it should have, the information suggesting a possible defect related to motor vehicle safety is quite limited.

Additional investigation is unlikely to result in a finding that a defect related to motor vehicle safety exists or a NHTSA order for the notification and remedy of a safety-related defect as requested by the petitioner. Therefore, in view of the need to allocate and prioritize NHTSA’s limited resources to best accomplish the agency’s safety mission, the petition is denied.”

In other words NHTSA:

  • Talked to owners who complained;
  • Drove the petitioners vehicle and didn’t experience SUA;
  • Asked Toyota what, if any, problems existed (none of course);
  • Found that the throttle control system may have had a problem but couldn’t find a cause;
  • Had limited information to work with;
  • Faced with limited resources and other more easily solvable safety issues, dropped any further investigation.

The most thorough of the government investigations appears to be the agency’s Vehicle Research & Test Center analysis of a 2007 Lexus ES350.  This investigation, cited by Toyota above as evidence of the lack of a defect, suggests otherwise.  Here’s what else the report stated:

“To comprehend the statistical significance of the probability for this event to occur, a survey was sent to a sample size of 1986 registered owners of a 2007 Lexus ES-350 requesting information regarding episodes of unintended acceleration. NHTSA received 600 responses for an overall response rate of 30.2%. Fifty-nine owners stated they experienced unintended acceleration.  Thirty-five of those responding also reported that their vehicles were equipped with rubber Lexus all-weather floor mats and several commented that the incident occurred when the accelerator had become trapped in a groove in the floor mat. Interviews with owners revealed that many had unsecured rubber floor mats in place at the time of the unintended acceleration event, which included in some cases unsecured rubber floor mats placed over existing Lexus carpeted mats.”

The report is silent on several key issues, including owners who did not comment that the accelerator pedal was trapped in the groove of an all weather floor mat.  And what of the remaining 24 who didn’t have all weather floor mats?

The agency’s 2004 “thorough” investigation of SUA in 2002-2003 Camry and Lexus ES350 vehicles also failed to find a defect. In its Closing Report, the agency said:

“ODI failed to find any evidence in the interviews conducted (113 VOQ and 36 Toyota reports, 149 total), or in the information provided in Toyota’s IR response, of instrument panel warning lamp illumination or ETC diagnostic codes detection. None of the complainants interviewed described conditions similar to failsafe mode operation. One report (10062931) was found where an ETC component replacement occurred in connection with a repair attempt related to the alleged defect, no others were found. Toyota’s warranty claim rate is low with 24 of the 43 warranty claims submitted involving diagnostic repairs (that did not result in component replacement because no fault was detected). Many warranty claims were not related to the alleged defect Toyota’s ETC parts sales rate for the subject vehicles is low also. There are no service bulletins or campaigns that relate to the alleged defect.”

Translation: Driver’s actual experiences didn’t unfold the way Toyota says they should have (hey – the little light didn’t go on!); the automaker hasn’t replaced parts under warranty (check those floor mat numbers); and it didn’t acknowledge the problem via a technical bulletin, therefore it didn’t happen.

The latest “thorough” defect petition investigation was in response to Jeffery Pepski’s experience with SUA in his 2007 Lexus.  Pepski’s vehicle was examined by a NHTSA investigator and a Toyota representative at a Lexus dealer in which they couldn’t reproduce the incident and claimed the floor mat was the cause.  The investigation then headed west to investigate the causes of tragic fatal crash that killed Mark Saylor and three family members in a 2009 Lexus ES350. In that crash, the agency blamed an improperly placed all-weather accessory floor mats that were not specified for that model.  Pepski’s vehicle was equipped with the original equipment carpet mats. Why does the investigation tie these two incidents together? Pepski says that the agency came out ready to persuade him that the floor mat was to blame, even though that didn’t square with his experience of pulling up the accelerator pedal, as well as pushing down on it.  Both NHTSA and Toyota have demonstrated how an all-weather floor mat can cause the bottom edge of the accelerator pedal to catch, but the company and agency are notably silent on how the carpeted mat causes pedal interference.

If this is all due to errant floor mats, we have some questions:

Why do Toyota/Lexus models experience SUA absent all weather floor mats?

What changed in the floor mat design in 2002, when the complaint rates significantly increase?

How can a floor mat entrap a pedal during highway driving, when the operator has been driving steadily and does not depress the accelerator?

If Toyota/Lexus vehicle have floor mats so badly designed that they have killed at least 16 individuals and injured at least 243 injuries in SUA events, why is Toyota just getting around to fixing it now?

Why is Toyota claiming that floor mats are the cause of SUA incidents in vehicles not part of the floor mat recall?  If they are causing SUA, shouldn’t they be recalled too?

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NHTSA Denies Latest Toyota SUA Petition: Floor Mats to Blame

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has denied the latest petition for a defect investigation into Sudden Unintended Acceleration in Lexus ES350 vehicles, saying that Toyota has responded to the problem, by recalling 3.8 million floor mats, earlier this month.

“Except insofar as the petitioner’s contentions relate to that recall, the factual bases of the petitioner’s contentions that any further investigation is necessary are unsupported. In our view, additional investigation is unlikely to result in a finding that a defect related to motor vehicle safety exists or a NHTSA order for the notification and remedy of a safety-related defect as alleged by the petitioner at the conclusion of the requested investigation. Therefore, in view of the need to allocate and prioritize NHTSA’s limited resources to best accomplish the agency’s safety mission, the petition is denied. This action does not constitute a finding by NHTSA that a safety-related defect does not exist. The agency will take further action if warranted by future circumstances.”

To date, SRS has documented 16 deaths and 237 injuries related to Toyota Sudden Unintended Acceleration in the last six years. The most recent crash in August claimed the lives of a California Highway Patrolman and three of his family members, after the 2009 Lexus loaner he had been driving sped out of control and crashed on a Santee highway.

NHTSA’s denial of the latest petition asking for a probe into Toyota SUA problems beyond the floormats was submitted by Jeffery Pepski, of Plymouth, Minn. who was able to keep his 2007 Lexus from crashing as it sped under its own command for several miles one February evening, until suddenly stopping. But the incident was so disturbing, he refused to drive the vehicle again and filed a detailed petition to the agency in March, describing his nearly uncontrollable drive home, reaching speeds of almost 80 miles per hour. Applying the brakes with all the force he could muster, Pepski was able to slow the vehicle to 40 mph.

In his original complaint to the agency, Pepski noted: “I alternated between pumping the accelerator pedal and pulling up on it from the underside with my right foot as it became clear that the throttle was stuck in an open position. The vehicle continued to speed back up to over 65 mph with less pressure on the brake pedal.”

Pepski tried pressing the ignition button, and shifting the vehicle into neutral, without bringing the event to an end. Suddenly, the acceleration stopped. Toyota chalked it up to a misplaced floor mat, and denied Pepski’s request that it buy back the vehicle. In May, NHTSA and a Toyota representative inspected Pepski’s vehicle and concluded that Pepski’s OE carpet mat had entrapped the pedal.

Pepski was not persuaded:

“I was trapped in a runaway vehicle,” Pepski told SRS. “I was able to push down on the accelerator as well as push up the accelerator with my foot. If the floor mat had been the cause, I would have dislodged it and the acceleration I was experiencing would have gone away and that didn’t happen.”

He asked the Toyota representative to demonstrate how the floor mat could encroach upon the gas pedal – and remain there while a driver pushed and pulled the pedal.

“They couldn’t demonstrate that,” Pepski says. “If they can’t duplicate it, they say it didn’t happen, but computer glitches in cars can happen, just like they happen on your home computer. Glitches happen all of the time. Most have no serious consequences, but some do.”

Pepski’s petition raised seven issues in its request to broaden a 2007 Lexus SUA Preliminary Evaluation, which also closed with a finding that accessory all-weather floor mats were to blame. (Pepski’s vehicle did not have all-weather floor mats.) His points ranged from questioning if NHTSA addressed the proper corporate entity in Preliminary Evaluation PE07-016; to Toyota’s assessment of the defect; to questioning if the vehicle even met federal motor vehicle safety standards governing accelerator and brake systems.

In its denial, NHTSA responded to each of Pepki’s issues, dismissing them as incorrect or misguided. The agency said that Toyota vehicles complied with all relevant FMVSSs, that its investigation of drivers who complained of SUA events revealed that the problem was due to a misplaced floor mat and that Toyota was responding with its floor mat recall. The agency took pains to chide Pepski for confusing Toyota’s Brake Assist system referenced in the Owner’s Manual with the brake power assist system. The latter “is a computer controlled automobile braking technology that increases braking pressure in an emergency situation (e.g., crash avoidance braking).”

Although NHTSA and the automaker have tried to close the book on SUA, it is unlikely that the incidences – or the questions about electronic glitches in its electronic throttle control and brake systems will stop. Meanwhile, owners wait for Toyota’s latest countermeasure after alerting owners to remove floormats in more than 3 million models including the following:

  • 2007 – 2010 Camry
  • 2005 – 2010 Avalon
  • 2004 – 2009 Prius
  • 2005 – 2010 Tacoma
  • 2007 – 2010 Tundra
  • 2007 – 2010 ES350
  • 2006 – 2010 IS250 and IS350

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Trouble in Toyotaville

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The last month’s news has generated enough tarnish to all but blot out Toyota’s sterling reputation, built over decades. To recap: Toyota launches largest recall in the company’s history for all-weather floor mats that may entrap the accelerator pedals after four die in a sudden unintended acceleration (SUA) crash in California; the company is under investigation for a severe rust problem with Tundras; former corporate attorney Dimitrios P. Biller, former in-house attorney who accuses the automaker of destroying and concealing evidence in rollover cases, produces four boxes of documents to a court in Texas. Continue reading →