2008 Pontiac Vibe

Following the recall announced earlier today by Toyota, GM followed suit with a recall of its own for 199,163 Pontiac Vibe cars built during model years 2005-2008.  GM and Toyota created the Pontiac Vibe and Toyota Matrix as sister cars, so they share a lot of materials; namely the chassis, suspension and engines.  As part of this, the Electronic Control Module is shared between the two cars, prompting the recall.  Click here to read the original recall by Toyota for the details.

by John Suit

Source: GM

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2007 Corolla LE

Toyota just can’t get itself out of the recall quagmire it’s in.  Today, the automaker announced a recall of 1.13-million Corollas and Matrixes (Matrices?) from the 2005-2008 model years.  Only the two-wheel drive models are affected, which means your AWD Matrix is immune to this one.  The press release states that a crack can develop in the Electronic Control Module (ECM), which can lead to “harsh shifting” of the transmission or the engine stalling.  Only one minor injury has been attributed to this fault, out of three “unconfirmed accidents alleged to be related to this condition.”

2007 Matrix XR

This recall is a result of an earlier investigation, which we reported in March, and spans an extra model year (2008).  The recall’s fix is a new ECM, which will be replaced at no charge to customers, and should take less than 45 minutes per car to fix.  ECMs are typically between $500 and $2500, so this is no cheap fix for Toyota.

Any owners who still have questions, or have concerns about driving their vehicle prior to the new ECM being installed should call the Toyota Customer Experience Center at 1-800-331-4331.

by John Suit

Source: Toyota

Related posts:

1. UPDATE: GM recalls certain Pontiac Vibes, following Toyota’s recall
2. Stalling Cars Stumps Toyota
3. Update: Toyota to Recall 3.8 Million Vehicles over Gas Pedal issue

2007 Corolla LE

This latest report, from Reuters, suggests that Toyota is having problems with its 2005-2007 Corollas and Matrixes (Matrices?), a total of about 1.2 million vehicles.  In a move much different than the way it’s handled its recent recalls, Toyota announced Thursday that it informed U.S. regulators of a potential problem with stalling cars, and that it’s working on a fix for it.

Since they’ve been criticized recently for being too slow to action on problems with its vehicles, Toyota is trying, more or less, to prevent this one from snowballing on it.

The problem stems from a crack in soldered joints or an electrical short in the ECM, or Engine Control Module, commonly referred to as the car’s computer.  This causes a failure, leading to the engine shutting off.  There have been 26 reported stalls so far, but the concern comes from the randomness of where and when the stall occurs.  It’s happened while at both highway and slow speeds, and at least one stall was while a driver was in the middle of an intersection.

Toyota has said that there is no rhyme or reason why the stalls occur when they do, and that there is no prior warning to the engine shutoff.  Chris Santucci, Toyota’s regulatory affairs manager, had this to say in a letter to regulators:

“Toyota does not believe that the alleged defect creates an unreasonable risk to motor vehicle safety.”

Later on in the letter, he mentioned that it was better that the engine stall than risk catching fire or creating “catastrophic failures.”

So, while this isn’t a recall per se, notify your dealer as soon as possible if your Corolla or Matrix stalls on you.  According to the NHTSA, Toyota informed dealers that there is an upgraded ECM and a reflash available for the affected cars through a bulletin, way back in 2007.  The NHTSA also opened its own investigation into this problem in November of 2009.

2007 Matrix XR

If the last paragraph didn’t make you scratch your head, let’s delve into it a bit.  There exists both a public “ECM Reflash” TSB (Technical Service Bulletin), and a more hidden “ECM Replacement” TSB, which were issued in 2007.  The NHTSA only opened an investigation in November of 2009, two years later.  So, while this issue has been brought to the forefront much quicker than the recalls affecting 8.5 million Toyotas, it still took two whole years for Toyota to bring it up.  Despite Santucci’s assurances that the problem is not a safety issue, if my car were to stall while making a left turn, I would definitely consider that a safety issue.

When more news is available, you can be sure we’ll have it right here.

by John Suit

Source: Reuters, NHTSA

Related posts:

1. Toyota Corolla and Matrix stalling issue solved, recall announced
2. UPDATE: GM recalls certain Pontiac Vibes, following Toyota’s recall
3. Toyota expands Oil Leak Fix to new models

2010 Pontiac Vibe GT

GM took out two Pontiac Vibes this past weekend to test for braking when experiencing unintended acceleration, since the Vibe is a clone of the Toyota Matrix, which is involved in Toyota’s PedalGate.  They found that the Vibe’s braking system stopped the car, and within their “internal requirement for brake performance.”  They tested two Vibes, one for each recall (floot mats and sticky gas pedal).  Read on for more details.

So, what fits inside GM’s braking requirements:  169 meters, or 507 feet.  How fast was the car going before the brakes were applied?  60 MPH.  Edmunds found that from 60 MPH, only 127 feet were required to stop their tester Vibe.  That’s a four-fold increase!  But, on the good side, at least it stopped.  If anyone gets stuck in this situation, I just hope they have plenty of stopping room.

2010 Toyota Matrix XRS

Toyota will be sending parts to GM dealers so they can perform the fix themselves.  In the mean time, some 99,000 Pontiac Vibe owners will receive correspondence from GM as soon as they get more information from Toyota.

None of the complaints to GM have resulted from crash or injury, which is interesting, considering that before the Toyota-announced recall, GM hadn’t heard any complaints from customers for sticking gas pedals.

I’m glad to see that GM is getting out in front of this one.  While they haven’t said much about the recall, they were probably waiting for a fix to be devised, and since they didn’t really design the Vibe, it’s understandable that they would have to sit on the sidelines until more was known.  Good for them for recalling the Vibe and making sure their customers are safe.

If you have a Pontiac Vibe, please keep us informed of your experiences during this recall.

by John Suit

Source: GM

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1. UPDATE: GM recalls certain Pontiac Vibes, following Toyota’s recall
2. Uh-oh: Ford issues bulletin about Fusion/Milan Hybrid Brakes
3. Uh-oh: NHTSA Looking at 6.2 Million GM vehicles over Brakes

2010 Toyota Matrix XRS

So, overnight a lot happened with concern to Toyota.  While there are several things going on, I’m going to boil it down to a manageable amount of information for you to digest.  If you’d like, skip to the end of the post to read my synopsis of what’s currently going with Toyota, but in short, not much of it is good, and some of it is very bad.  We haven’t seen this much bad PR for a car maker since the Ford/Firestone fiasco ten years ago, and that recall affected far fewer vehicles.

2010 Toyota Highlander

First things first, what is going on?  Toyota apparently upped their 3.8-million recall to 4.3 million, last week.  Now they’re adding another 1.1 million vehicles, for a grand total of 5.4 million vehicles.  For those of you keeping score at home, that’s about half of what new car sales were for 2009.  That’s a lot of cars.  Add to that the statement by NHTSA head David Strickland, saying that the NHTSA informed Toyota of their legal responsibility to halt sales of vehicles affected by this latest recall, and Toyota’s statement that they voluntarily are suspending sales, and it just adds up to bad press.

Newly-affected models:

2008-2010 Highlander
2009-2010 Corolla
2009-2010 Venza
2009-2010 Matrix

This also includes the Pontiac Vibe, as I reported yesterday.  Why add these cars?  Apparently, Toyota got a report from the federal government that gas pedals were sticking on the above-listed models with secured floor mats. That’s even worse than the original recall, if you ask me – the orginal recall was for loose floor mats.

2010 Toyota Corolla S

Second, CTS Corporation, also from yesterday’s post, is saying that it built the pedal assemblies to Toyota’s specifications, and is unaware of accidents or injuries occurring because of their products.   CTS also says that it’s gotten reports of “fewer than a dozen instances where this condition has occurred, and in no instance did the accelerator actually become stuck in a partially depressed condition.”

2010 Toyota Venza

Third, Toyota has extended the recall for sticking gas pedals to Europe.  This is going to affect us, but since no real solution, short of replacing the pedal assembly, has been announced, it’s hard to know just how.

Fourth, and this just hit the wire, is that CTS Corp. now says it’s ramping up production at 3 of its manufacturing facilities, in order to meet demand at Toyota’s factories in the United States.  There’s no word on what the new capacity is, but CTS says it’s “putting additional production lines to ramp up faster-than-normal production.”  That’s good news, but what about the cars already on the road?  Toyota says it’s working with CTS to develop a “sleeve” to fix the problem on already-built cars.  So what caused the issue in the first place?  Before today, Toyota said it was still working with CTS to figure that out, but now they’re saying that condensation causes the problem to get worse over time.  My take on it is that condensation could cause the lubrication on the joints in the pedal assembly to break down, come off over time, or even worse – it could cause rust on the metal, which would cause the joint to work stiffly, if at all.

Synopsis:

Toyota should give its own State of the Union address, to get out in front of all this bad PR.  They are in the midst of a hurricane of bad press since the California State Trooper’s tragic accident last year.  They’re doing some good in addressing cars sold overseas, since we now know that it is Toyota’s design, not CTS Corporation’s, but that doesn’t really help us in the U.S..  This also means that cars built in factories other than those in the United States could be affected if they used Toyota’s design to manufacture the pedal assemblies, and apparently Toyota really doesn’t want to replace gas pedals in these cars.  Just like where they are reshaping the gas pedals in cars for their other recall, they want to put some “sleeve” on the pedal assemblies in order to prevent condensation from causing sticky gas pedals.  How well that solution will work over time is anyone’s guess.  This whole fiasco goes to show that even the Japanese car companies aren’t perfect, and as the size of your business grows, your Quality Control department needs to grow right along with it!

One final bit of information I picked up: Toyota apparently passed on a script to dealers, for when customers ask questions about the latest pedal recall.  One of the Q&A’s goes like this:

Q. Have there been any accidents reported?

A. The number of accidents are still under investigation.

While the answer is technically true, it omits that there have been accidents because of the gas pedal problem.

We will keep you updated as the latest news hits, so follow us on Twitter or friend us on Facebook for updates when new posts are published.

by John Suit

Source: Automotive News, Toyota

Related posts:

1. UPDATE: GM recalls certain Pontiac Vibes, following Toyota’s recall
2. Toyota Corolla and Matrix stalling issue solved, recall announced
3. Update: Toyota to Recall 3.8 Million Vehicles over Gas Pedal issue