International Toyota recalls.

[boxerboy]

I've done a quick unsuccessful search here.

Does this issue affect the Aurion? It seems to affect the USA Camry accelerator mechanism.

Any word?

Toyota Motor Corporation issued a voluntary recall for the set of 2.3 million vehicles in the United States early this January. These vehicles have problems with faulty accelerator pedals that stuck and accelerates in unexpected manner. But before that, last year in the month of January, they have done recall for the vehicles regarding the issues of floor mats.

Here is the list of affected vehicles includes in the recall this January.

• 2009-2010 RAV4,

• 2009-2010 Corolla,

• 2009-2010 Matrix,

• 2005-2010 Avalon,

• 2007-2010 Camry,

• 2010 Highlander,

• 2007-2010 Tundra,

• 2008-2010 Sequoia

http://www.showbizgalore.com/4210/toyota-s...ected-vehicles/

Edited January 30, 2010 by boxerboy

[Steven]

I read in the paper today that Australian models aren't affected because their accelerator assemblies were sourced from a different manufacturer.

[Silver-Aurion]

Refer to:

http://pressroom.toyota.com.au/press_relea...;navSectionID=2

[boxerboy]

That settles that then. Too easy. Cheers. :)

[DJKOR]

It seems to be limited to the US which always makes me wonder for a moment. Anyways, I've had my say in speculation over here:

Seems that Toyota Engineering stuffed up!

I personally think the occurrence wasn't really that high and was caused by people putting all-weather mats on top of the standard mat and/or not using the clips on the standard mats. Then it got blown out of proportion by people getting into accidents and using a stuck accelerator as an excuse since it was an ideal blame. Then the media got a hold of it and this is what you get. That's my theory anyways as crazy as it all sounds.

On that topic of things, then you've got that VVT-i oil line issue? There were all these cases in the US with regards to it, and this led to them replacing them here. But the question exists of how many cases have you heard if this problem occurring outside of the US. I guess the US supplies of parts must be of a lower quality somehow.

Either way, I personally think the accelerator isn't the problem, but I'm not going to say any more. I just like to think a bit differently.

[boxerboy]

From what I've read, the mat theory has some credence, or at least others have also mentioned it.

Audi nearly went out of business in NA 20 years ago with an accelerator issue. It was too close to the brake and sometimes the driver would hit the wrong one. Fix was to increase the distance between the pedals.

[Foss]

It seems to be limited to the US which always makes me wonder for a moment. Anyways, I've had my say in speculation over here:

Seems that Toyota Engineering stuffed up!

I personally think the occurrence wasn't really that high and was caused by people putting all-weather mats on top of the standard mat and/or not using the clips on the standard mats. Then it got blown out of proportion by people getting into accidents and using a stuck accelerator as an excuse since it was an ideal blame. Then the media got a hold of it and this is what you get. That's my theory anyways as crazy as it all sounds.

On that topic of things, then you've got that VVT-i oil line issue? There were all these cases in the US with regards to it, and this led to them replacing them here. But the question exists of how many cases have you heard if this problem occurring outside of the US. I guess the US supplies of parts must be of a lower quality somehow.

Either way, I personally think the accelerator isn't the problem, but I'm not going to say any more. I just like to think a bit differently.

Wholeheartedly agree. It seems more like a good excuse to avoid your insurance excess. Known problem which is obviously very likely to cause crashes, its a perfect opportunity to exploit a possible issue. I read about the original mat problem months ago (and posted about it here somewhere when I first heard) and this is most likely related. If theres noting to secure your mats, it doesn't take much for them to slip up onto your accelerator. I used to have this problem regularly in my Lancer.

[Adamsy]

Ok as Employee of Toyota this particular recall quite annoys me... Toyota is one of the few manufactures that have these Hooks on the driver’s side mat to stop them slipping under the pedals, Why are the caning Toyota over an potential failure of a part that is outsourced to another company when there is many manufactures that don’t even have this feature in there mats nor it it on any set you buy from supercheap etc. Why is nothing said about this? at least an effort has been made by Toyota in the first place to stop this potential problem from occurring when as mentioned before some other manufactures don’t and certainly aftermarket companies don't by not fitting there mats with this simple safety feature? was this simple an opportunity to have a crack at the big T? whilst over in Holden land they have Captiva's they won’t start and on a more serious note actually stop steering (imagine that at highway speeds?) but you hear next to nothing about it... guess the slight risk that one day the hooks that keep your floor mats down may snap is a much bigger problem that vehicles that just randomly stop steering.. WHAT A JOKE!

[DJKOR]

... Why are the caning Toyota over an potential failure of a part that is outsourced to another company ....

With that statement, I am also wanting to say the following.

If the pedal is a fault due to it sticking, it annoys me as well that Toyota is getting all the blame for it when they aren't the ones that are making the pedal on the cars that are affected.

That's if the pedal is at fault.

[Foss]

was this simple an opportunity to have a crack at the big T?

Well, its Toyota for god sake. Something had to be faulty at some point! And if the biggest fault they can find in Toyota cars is that the mats sometimes slip, its not putting a much doubt in my mind that I've made the right choice buying a Toyota, nor does it do much to taint their reputation as one of the worlds most reliable car manufactures.

And if it is the accelerator, as much as its not fair to blame Toyota because a part they sourced from a 3rd party is fault, and it annoys me, too, that its Toyota's reputation at stake, think of it this way... if you buy a computer and the hard drive fails, do you complain to Acer (the computer builder) or Western Digital (the 3rd party who made the hard drive Acer used)? If you go to your local pub and buy a Crownie and the beer is bad, do you complain to the pub or do you complain to CUB? Its unfortunate, but whoever's logo is on the finished product is who is going to cop the flak, whether its their fault or not. And if its one of the best, its gonna get more of a media beatup than a regularly problematic manufacturer.

[SecaBoy]

we had a big family lunch on sunday and someone brought up the fact of this "major" issue with all toyotas...

i just laughed and said "get your facts straight before making comments like that... the fault is due to the mats, its not actually a design/technical fault of the car itself...

take the mats out and you'll never have a problem..."

it was funny to see him try and back out of what he was saying...

[DJKOR]

... the fault is due to the mats, its not actually a design/technical fault of the car itself...

That's what I think as well, but the media etc is trying to push that it is the pedal causing the problem. They are saying that the pedal itself gets 'stuck' which I find a little difficult to imagine because the mechanism is so smooth. Unless the inernal spring comes loose or something... but I would imagine that if that was the case, it would NEVER return, and then investigation after a crash would show a faulty pedal.

Then they are trying to say that maybe it is a friction thing which is affected by temperature, but I can't imagine that occurring as well. But hey, I can only say my views on it.

Those that say it's an ECU issue... well I would imagine their pedal wouldn't be getting 'stuck' like they say. An un-responsive pedal would be more what you'd get.

Oh wells. I still don't have any issues with Toyota.

[Adamsy]

Sad thing is, Toyota's reputation for building vehicles with "QDR" has already come in to question even here on a local front in Tasmania. Today we had somebody make contact quite concerned that his locally build vehicle could also suffer this problem, and also would alarmed that perhaps Toyota's all of a sudden weren’t built like the used to be. My Dealer principal of course found this very alarming and promptly explained the situation in the US and why our CAMRY/AURION twins were different. Then he took it a step further by sending an email to the entire motor group that that each employee was armed with the correct information if they were ever faced with questions from customers. Make no mistake Toyota is taking this situation very seriously!

[SCOOTA44]

I read in the paper today that Australian models aren't affected because their accelerator assemblies were sourced from a different manufacturer.

Did anyone see the news on SBS this evening, the part concerned was made in the US for the gen 6 unlike ours made here, seems the manufacturer in the US making the part "on the cheap" and toyota is copping the blame. there are even lawyers trying to blame toyota for the "fly by wire" system, which is incorrect, it happens to be two plastic parts of the pedal that stick together thus disabling the throttle from releasing. toyotas fix is a metal shim, for a better explanation, in the throttle assembly, which apparently takes half an hour to replace. thank god we got aussie built aurions without this problem.

[boxerboy]

How much d'ya think I could flog these for on ebay.com?

There's a few million wanting something?

I could make a killing...patent pending :D

[DJKOR]

On this topic, here is some more to read... and see:

TTAC’s Complete Guide To Toyota’s Gas Pedals: Teardown, Pictures, Toyota’s Fix, Analysis, Commentary

[danja]

From what I've read/heard about it, it sounds like a design fault in the pedals being manufactured by CTS. At the end of the day it's Toyota's responsibility to ensure that both the design and QC of the parts they are using in their vehicles is up to standard. In this case it seems as though one or both of those boxes wasn't ticked.

Given it sounds like it takes some time for the problem to manifest, and even then the failure rates are quite low (5 cars in however many thousand or million produced with this part?) I'm not too alarmed by this, even if it did effect the Aussie market.

All said and done I'm impressed Toyota decided to setup up and deal authoritatively with the problem, and hasn't buck-passed too much. It's no small thing to completely shutdown production for several weeks. Add the cost of repairs to existing vehicles, this is going to be a very, very expensive exercise for them. Expect the next-gen Toyota pedals to be designed by a NASA engineer and laser-cut out of space-grade titanium - it'll still be cheaper than going through this process again!

Edited February 6, 2010 by danja

[boleh]

I am no engineer, but looking at the metal piece that goes to the back of the pedal.. Is it supposed to limit the pedal being depressed excessively such as flooring it hard?maybe the people who reported the problem are petrol heads

[DJKOR]

I am no engineer, but looking at the metal piece that goes to the back of the pedal.. Is it supposed to limit the pedal being depressed excessively such as flooring it hard?maybe the people who reported the problem are petrol heads

It doesn't actually affect the pedal travel. You need to read the article with a bit more depth to see how it all comes together. Basically the shim is used to reduce friction on the teeth:

The photo above shows the inside of the unit, with the friction arm extending forward. The shim is clearly visible as the shiny gray rectangle. The pivot axles extending out on both sides of the fulcrum/friction arm are visible as two small white/gray pieces, just below and to both sides of the shim. The friction teeth are visible towards the front of the unit, riding (now higher) in their grooves.

This photo above was taken previously of the same pedal. It’s difficult to tell exactly from the slightly different angles whether the teeth are riding higher with the shim, but it does appear so. And a subjective impression was that the pedal had somewhat less friction. So the fix may well reduce the friction below a dangerous level, but for how long?

[Deanja]

Bit of common sense ladies and Gentlemen. are you aware that Toyota aren't the only manufacturer who has the faulty pedal gear ( and it is faulty), Citron, Pugeot and several other manufacturers have also recalled vehicles, but Toyota, these days being the biggest world wide is attracting all the attention. It's not just one line of vehicles which use this partiocular part eg. just Aurions, it's a whole range of Toyotas !!

As for the mat thing, the American models don't have the same clip arrangment for floor mats like we have in the Aurion. Anyone who buys after-market floor mats that can't be secured needs their head read anyway. The likely hood of them ridding up under or wrapping around your pedals is more than just likely and if you looked at traffic accident reports from police, time and time again this problem has been included in accident reports.

Whilst this may be the Aurion section of this site I think we should also mention the problem Toyota is having with the new Prius braking system. Toyota have come straight out and said they redesigned the system on the latest model prius, most probably because of the increased motor sizes, both the petrol and electric, and they have admitted they have a problem, which they are trying to find a solution too. My wifes Prius, previous model has no problems what so ever in any department.

All that said, it still basically comes back to quality control, something which Toyota have let slip !! Yes they may be getting outside sub contractors, every vehicles manufacturer dose for just about all the small bits and piecdes and assemblies, I've been to Japan and Korea and if you saw the "back-yard"manufacturers and assembly lines, and I do mean "back-yard"and the use of the wording assembly lines is probably a bit of an over kill, you'd question buying any vehicle, they really are bad one horse town stuff!!! But it's still up to the manufacturer to ensure the standard they want or expect is maintained by their suppliers, who w3ill take a shortcut to make an extra dollar or Yen etc.

[DJKOR]

I do agree on the whole quality control thing, but when it comes to testing something, there is only so much you can test.

Sure enough the pedal can be put through it's paces, but this sticking issue was one of those things that no one could really pinpoint the exact conditions that caused it to occur. So throughout all the testing that Toyota could have done, quite simply, they may not have gotten close to matching this condition.

[Silver-Aurion]

I do agree on the whole quality control thing, but when it comes to testing something, there is only so much you can test.

Sure enough the pedal can be put through it's paces, but this sticking issue was one of those things that no one could really pinpoint the exact conditions that caused it to occur. So throughout all the testing that Toyota could have done, quite simply, they may not have gotten close to matching this condition.

Exactly correct. I was thinking this exact thing today in my mind when watching Sky news where people are crying how Toyota F'd up. It pisses me off people are so stupid.

I think they need to be driving Great Walls of ***** and then complain.

[Deanja]

If you have read some of the background to this pedal issue you would understand that Toyota engineers designed these components, other manufacturers where then sold licenses to use the design. I repeat Toyota engineers designed this assembly, in fact it was a re-design of what had been up until they fiddled with it, a practical and reliable unit. Rather like the job they've done with the Prius braking units, worked fine until they fiddled.

You younger members may not be farmiliar with the old saying, "IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT". B)

[DJKOR]

You younger members may not be farmiliar with the old saying, "IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT". B)

Just because I'm young, doesn't mean I'm not aware of that common saying.

Fact of life is... regardless of whether something works well or not, someone is always going to try and "improve" it. Otherwise you'd never be moving forward.

[Silver-Aurion]

You younger members may not be farmiliar with the old saying, "IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT". B)

Fact of life is... regardless of whether something works well or not, someone is always going to try and "improve" it. Otherwise you'd never be moving forward.

Yeah, and let the millions of Toyota drivers be the guinea pigs and let them test the new killer peddles...

haha, just kidding.