Road Reality » Toyota

2 New Steering-related Toyota Recalls

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:05:42 +0000

Well, it would appear that Toyota isn’t out of the recall woods yet. The automaker is recalling a total of 412,000 vehicles built between 2000 and 2007. Most of the recalled vehicles are Toyota Avalons, but about 10% of them are Lexus LX 470s. The issues are different between the two vehicles, but both can lead to loss of vehicle direction control. Toyota says that neither problem has caused any accidents. Continue reading for more details. If this reminds you of a recent event involving the Corolla, you’re correct, although Toyota says it wasn’t a defect, but will fix Corolla owners’ issues anyway.

2004 Toyota Avalon

The lion’s share of the two recalls is for 373,000 examples of the 2000-2004 Toyota Avalon sedan. It involves improper production of the “steering bar,” which is used as part of the locking mechanism that keeps the steering wheel from turning when the vehicle is parked. Due to improper casting of the part, a crack can develop and over time get worse. This may result in the bar moving while the car is in motion, and certain steering angles line up a hole in the steering column with this steering bar, meaning the steering could be locked at a certain angle while the car is in motion. If this issue pops up while the car is parked, it could make it impossible to unlock the steering wheel, in effect disabling the car.

Definitely not good, this shows another quality control failure on Toyota’s part, albeit one that is hard to spot when the car is being built. Perhaps if Toyota had spent more time with pre-production Avalons, they could have avoided this issue?

Toyota will begin notifying owners of affected vehicles in late August, and will be replacing the steering column bracket at no charge to customers.

2007 Lexus LX 470

The smaller of the two recalls, for 39,000 Lexus LX 470 SUVs, involves those built between 2003 and 2007. Apparently, a large enough impact to the front wheels, say hitting a deep pothole, can cause a snap ring to come off. This ring holds two parts of the steering column together, so once it’s dislodged, using the steering can cause the two parts to work themselves free, causing complete loss of control over vehicle direction. While Toyota says they have no reports of accidents due to this problem, I can see how it would easily result in LX 470s running off the road or into oncoming traffic.

Toyota will be notifying affected Lexus owners starting in mid-August, and their vehicles will be receiving a new snap ring and another component designed to prevent separation of the steering shaft.

Lexus announces the 2011 ES 350

admin — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 18:00:49 +0000

Lexus announced today the changes for its 2011 ES 350 luxury sedan. The ES will start at $35,525, an increase of $350 over 2010 models, and no longer does it require premium unleaded fuel. Instead, it will get 19/27 city/highway mpg on regular fuel. The aforementioned change is the big one, and the rest are fairly minor tweaks. Click past the jump for more details and a high-resolution picture gallery.

Eagle-eyed readers will note that the gas mileage has stayed the same from 2010 to 2011, despite the lower octane fuel requirement. Power and acceleration are listed as being a few ticks below where they were for 2010, but I would expect the car to identify premium fuel and adjust performance for it, as do many of the ES’s competitors. Further, a new color, dubbed Deep Sea Mica is appearing. Other than that, the Brake Override System Toyota said it would add to all of its vehicles is listed as a change.

It’s interesting that Toyota is touting the new ES’s lower fuel requirement, when if you read the article I wrote a while back, I doubt that many Lexus buyers are going to quibble about a few hundred dollars of gas per year, when the ES 350 can be optioned up into the high-$40k range. A counterpoint to this is perception – if consumers perceive that the Lexus is cheaper to run, they may buy it compared to some other luxury sedans.

The 2011 Lexus ES 350 goes on sale late fall, according to Toyota.

by John Suit

Source: Toyota

KBB Awards for Best Reader Car Review

admin — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 14:00:35 +0000

In a recent contest, Kelly Blue Book (KBB) challenged its readers to come up with the best car review, and the results are in. The winner is Clark Olson Media for the review of his 2000 Toyota Corolla. Runners up include Joel Moss Levinson and his 2001 Volkswagen Passat and Patrick Latimer with his 2004 Subaru Forester. Click past the jump to see the videos.

Winner:

2nd Place:

3rd Place:

by John Suit

Source: KBB.com

PedalGate: Toyota PR “planted” DOT findings?

admin — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:38:57 +0000

In a report from Just-Auto that AutoBlog then further investigated, it seems like Toyota’s own Public Relations arm was the source for The Wall Street Journal‘s report earlier this week, which said that the DOT’s investigation found drivers at fault for incidents of unintended acceleration. Remember that “grain of salt” I was taking with the original report? Looks like something was fishy after all. Keep in mind that the NHTSA said that it was still months away from finishing its own investigation. Stay tuned for updates as they become available.

by John Suit

Source: Just-Auto via AutoBlog

PedalGate: Trumped Up Charges?

admin — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 13:57:13 +0000

A report from The Wall Street Journal has reported about the results of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) investigation into the claims of unintended acceleration involving Toyota’s vehicles. The WSJ’s report says that the recalls, which have tarnished Toyota’s reputation for quality, not to mention missed sales opportunities and the outlay of cash to fix over 8 million cars, were not caused by faulty electronics: driver error, not stuck gas pedals, are to blame in almost every case.

Recalled Toyota floor mat and gas pedal

After examining dozens of black box data recorders from the crashed Toyotas, the DOT found that in almost all cases, the gas pedal was floored and the brakes weren’t even touched. I say almost all, because the crash which started the media blitz around the issue, which involved a California highway patrolman in a runaway Lexus. That crash was determined to be caused by the driver’s floor mat, which trapped the gas pedal in a pushed-down position.

Meanwhile, the NHTSA isn’t commenting, at least until their probe into Toyota’s issues has been completed, which is expected to be months from now. In regards to the electronic issue which was blamed for lots of crashes, Daniel Smith, NHTSA’s associate administrator for enforcement, recently said, “In spite of our investigations, we have not actually been able yet to find a defect.”

So, while the DOT and perhaps the NHTSA are blaming drivers, Toyota isn’t jumping on that bandwagon, and has said repeatedly that they haven’t found a source for the problems customers are reporting.

I take the results of this first investigation with a grain of salt, as the same results were found in an investigation into the Audi 5000 sedans back in 1989, which also blamed drivers for crashes involving unintended acceleration.

by John Suit

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Official: Lexus Engine Recall affects 138,000 vehicles

admin — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 19:58:14 +0000

2006 Lexus IS 350

Following on the footsteps of earlier announcements, a clarifying announcement was made by Toyota regarding faulty engines in some of their Lexus vehicles. Today, Toyota officially notified the NHTSA of its intent to recall about 138,000 vehicles in the United States, for a problem which can cause the engine to stall while driving. The automaker said that most owners who are affected will notice a rough idle or louder than normal engine noise. Read on for my analysis and specific models being recalled.

Toyota says that “the likelihood of a customer vehicle experiencing this condition is two-tenths of one percent (0.2 %).” That means there are about 276 cars out there which will exhibit the symptoms of this issue. Toyota will be sending out recall notices to affected owners soon, and those who receive the letter should contact their local Lexus dealership to schedule an appointment where their car will undergo a diagnosis and repair free of charge.

If you do the math, that leaves approximately 276 cars that would exhibit any symptoms. With the worldwide recall reportedly including 270,000 vehicles, that’s got to be more than one bad batch of valve springs. I think that there was an entire production run of these springs that had the contaminants in them, and Toyota’s got to recall any car that used them to ensure that they don’t have another PedalGate.

The following table lists all of the affected models. Cars built during model years 2009 and 2010 are not affected by this issue, presumably because Toyota switched suppliers, or they’ve gotten a large enough sampling of data to narrow down the problem batch of faulty engine parts to only those used in 2006-2008 3.5-liter V6, 4.6 and 5.0-liter V8 engines.

Model	Model Year
GS 350	2007, 2008
GS 450h	2007, 2008
GS 460	2008
IS 350	2006, 2007, 2008
LS 460	2007, 2008
LS 460 L	2007, 2008
LS 600h L	2008

by John Suit

Source: Toyota