Posts Tagged ‘recall’

Toyota announced today that it will voluntarily recall 600,000 Sienna minivans to address potential corrosion of the spare tire carrier cable.  The recall affects two-wheel drive versions of the first- and second-generation Sienna minivan, sold from model years 1998-2010.

Toyota explains that long-term exposure to road salts commonly used in cold-weather states may cause corrosion to the carrier cable.  In the corrosion is severe, the carrier cable may break and the spare tire could become separated from the vehicle, creating a debris hazard for other vehicles.

For the time being, only vehicles based in cold-weather states are affected by the recall.  Owners who live in warm-weather states are eligible to have the same repair performed but it will be classified under a separate Special Service Campaign.

Sienna owners will be asked to first bring their vehicles in for a preliminary 30-minute inspection while the automaker develops a final repair procedure.  Steve St. Angelo, Chief Quality Officer for Toyota’s North American operations, notes that the company is, “working diligently to develop a remedy as soon as possible.”

For beleaguered Toyota, this recall falls after months of controversy over unintended acceleration claims and less than a week after Consumer Reports unearthed a potential problem with the electronic stability control system in the Lexus GX460 sport utility vehicle.  Engineers at the automaker’s luxury division have been able to duplicate the handling condition that Consumer Reports dubbed a “safety risk,” though Toyota has not yet decided whether or not to recall the vehicle.

Consumer Reports has announced a rare “Do Not Buy” rating for the Lexus GX460 sport utility vehicle. While performing a standard handling test, CR found that the GX460’s electronic stability control was extremely late to intervene.

The maneuver tests for a condition called ‘lift-throttle oversteer’ which is the tendency for a vehicle to fishtail when a driver steers the vehicle into a turn and then lifts off the accelerator pedal suddenly. Drivers in the real world may face this same condition if they veer onto a highway exit ramp too quickly and then try to slow.

The Lexus GX460, which is mechanically similar to the Toyota 4Runner, comes standard with an electronic stability control system that is supposed to detect a slide and then carefully activate the brakes to help the driver regain control of the vehicle.

Consumer Reports found that the electronic stability control system in the GX460 was extremely late to intervene. So much so that the vehicle was almost completely sideways before the system activated.

Curiously, the Toyota 4Runner had no such issue when it was run through the same test by Consumer Reports.

The magazine notes that in the real world, a GX460 may come into contact with a curb or slide off the pavement, which may “trip” the vehicle and cause a dangerous rollover crash. CR notes that ‘tripping’ is the number one cause of rollover crashes.

Consumer Reports goes to great lengths to remain objective, even purchasing its test vehicles from dealerships anonymously, so as to avoid foul play. (It’s rare for a manufacturer to specially-prepare test vehicles for the media, but several enthusiast magazines have reported this happening in the past.)

The magazine tested their own GX460 and then paid Lexus to borrow a second vehicle from the media test fleet. Tests on the second vehicle produced the same fishtailing outcome.

For its part, Toyota’s luxury division is responding quickly. Lexus has announced a stop-sale for all GX460 models and is offering free loaner cars to its affected customers. The company states that its, “extensive vehicle testing provides a good indication of how our vehicles perform and we are confident that the GX meets our high safety standards.”

Nonetheless, the company has dispatched engineers to investigate the claim and potentially develop a fix.

For embattled Toyota, this is the latest in a long string of serious safety issues and the price tag for recalls, government fines, lawsuits, and lost consumer confidence is likely to continue climbing.

The Toyota recall scandal has been shocking on many levels and we’ve been studying consumer reactions to better understand how and why people feel the way they do about this ongoing saga.

In addition to analyzing feedback and comments voiced about Toyota on Honk, we also fielded a market research survey in late February to help quantify some of the impacts.

Results of the survey confirmed that consumers are angry with Toyota over both the recalls and the company’s handling of the situation.  Interestingly, the damage seems to be affecting many different components of Toyota’s brand image.  The perception of Toyota’s eco-friendliness, which is not directly connected to safety or quality, nonetheless dropped by four percent as a result of the recalls.

Stephanie LaCrosse, a Honk founder, was recently interviewed in Detroit and San Francisco to discuss the Toyota recall scandal and our findings.  Here are clips from two of her interviews:

Has the Toyota recall scandal affected your opinion of the company?

By now you’ve probably heard about James Sikes, the San Diego man who went for a wild ride in his 2008 Toyota Prius this past Monday.  While passing another car, Sikes claims that the accelerator in his Prius became stuck and that his car began to accelerate uncontrollably.  He led authorities on a 23-minute high-speed adventure until he was finally able to shut down the vehicle.

Automotive blog, Jalopnik, was the first to investigate Sikes and discovered a suspicious past involving a 2008 bankruptcy in which over $700,000 was owed.  Fox News also reports that Mr. Sikes filed a 2001 police report for a theft valued at $58,000.  The rest of the news media has jumped on these findings and on other outside character references and has started to question if Sikes faked the incident to profit from the publicity.

The Sikes incident highlights another small but important component of the story that’s being overlooked amidst all the hype: the transmission shifter.

The 2004-2009 Toyota Prius features one of the most unique transmission shifters on the market.  It’s a tiny plastic joystick who’s mission is to reinforce the notion that the Prius is not your everyday, run-of-the-mill, 21st-century automobile.

Photo via SimonK / Flickr

In this particular incident, however, the unique design may have contributed to Sikes’ inability to control his vehicle.

There is no industry standard for transmission shifters and many automakers have begun to use bespoke designs as a way to set their cars apart.  The Aston Martin DB9, for example, sports separate buttons for Park, Reverse, Neutral, and Drive on its dashboard.  BMW uses a joystick similar to the Prius on its X5 crossover.

In a relaxed driving situation, these deviations from the norm are at worst an inconvenience.  In an emergency situation, like the one James Sikes claims to have experienced, unusual designs could put drivers at greater risk as they struggle to operate the unfamiliar.

For his part, Sikes claims he was unsure of how to place his hybrid’s transmission in Neutral and he worried that accidentally engaging Reverse might, “flip the car.”  Toyota responded soon after with a list of FAQs explaining that the electronic shifter in the Prius must be moved to the left and held in place for one full second to engage Neutral.

“Press and hold” is an emergency command most often associated with consumer electronics – not automobiles.  Have automakers, in their attempts to create distinctive vehicles, inadvertently put their customers at greater risk?  Do you think that transmission shifters – or aspects of their operation – should be standardized as a result of the incident in San Diego?

If you’ve been able to pull your eyes away from the latest sensational coverage of Jim Sikes’ runaway Toyota Prius in San Diego, you may have come across another story from the Detroit Free Press in which Toyota is taking heat from Detroit’s Big Three.

It seems that in the frenzy of the congressional hearings, Toyota submitted a chart showing the number of recalls from itself and other manufacturers over the past decade.  The chart was titled, “Automotive Recalls in Perspective” and revealed that all three of the Detroit firms had roughly triple the number of recalls that Toyota did over the same time period.

Detroit is upset by the chart but can’t risk challenging Toyota in public because an attack will only draw attention to their own bad data.  Big Three insiders are said to be skulking behind the scenes, throwing around phrases like, “It’s tearing the whole industry apart.”

The Freep also points out that this may be yet another PR misstep by Toyota because the charts were somewhat irrelevant to the congressional hearings.  The investigation is for Toyota’s poor management of the recalls today – not yesterday.

Where I take offense is in Detroit’s whining and grousing behind the scenes.  Yes, the chart was intended to make them look bad and Toyota look good.  But isn’t that exactly what the Big Three and their dealers did last month when they resorted to cheap shot incentives and advertisements to lure customers away from Toyota?

If you can’t take the heat then stay out of the kitchen.