Toyota Mounts Largest Recall In U.S. History

Floor mats, not exactly the engine going bad.

I will never ever buy Toyota/Lexus because I don't want to die!

nevertheless, if floor mats make a car dangerous, it makes it dangerous. I'm not gloating, but everyone has their problems...

Badgewhore- Actually this was even too obvious for me.

As soon as I learned of it Inspirion7 sent it in. Gotta give credit where credit is due.

Actually this one is a bit crazy, I have seen the mats in question and I can see why there is a problem. It was pretty obvious they could have been designed better.

With that being said I am still wondering just how the latest fatal accident went down involving a trained peace officer (blamed on the mats). It seems there were several ways to abort the issue but none worked. It is sad it came to this.

that's exactly what a recall is, a safety issue, and if Toyota is doing it on there own it's just a voluntary recall.

There would not be a recall if there wasn't something wrong. Something is wrong. Some thing has failed. Houston we have a problem. Webster's definition of recall is" to bring back or return." It didn't say anything about being forced.

Inspiron is right. Something did fail. The dealer failed to tell someone how to put their mats in right. OR The guest failed to put the mats in right. OR The clean up guy didn't re-install the mats right. OR The dealer installed the wrong mats......nothing is wrong with the design....just the application.

This is the same as if someone put a canoe on top of their roof rack and didn't attach it. If you read the actual recall....when the car gets to the dealer....they make sure you don't have the mat installed incorrectly....then send you back down the road.

in 2007, they launched another program, but not recall, telling people to bring their cars in if they were worried about the floor mat getting caught, or have experienced it themselves. that happened after a few people on the street noted the accelerator sticking, but it could be easily pulled back. I guess they should have just done the recall in the first place.

though you would think that starting with the 2008 models, they would have incorporated the new design into the cars

The point over all is, when you go from a pristine record of not having recalls and your competition is heaving from all the money to fix problems and public opinion, to a current image of questionable, if not completely negligible actions, consumers don't give a stick about if Toyota had a recall they issued, they just want quality. To you the loyal purchaser its cool, to someone new to the game, this doesn't look like crap.

I'm posting this as to not be accused of being a hater. This is from the NHTSA. Take it up with them.

NHTSA said it had received reports of 102 incidents in which the accelerator may have become stuck on the Toyota vehicles involved. It was unclear how many led to crashes but the inquiry was prompted by a highspeed crash in August in California of a Lexus barreling out of control. As the vehicle hit speeds exceeding 120 mph, family members made a frantic 911 call and said the accelerator was stuck and they couldn't stop the vehicle.

"This is an urgent matter," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement. "For everyone's sake, we strongly urge owners of these vehicles to remove mats or other obstacles that could lead to unintended acceleration.

"Toyota's previously largest U.S. recall was about 900,000 vehicles in 2005 to fix a steering issue. The company declined to say how many complaints it had received about the accelerator issue.

In September 2007, Toyota recalled an accessory all-weather floor mat sold for use in some 2007 and 2008 model year Lexus ES 350 and Toyota Camry vehicles because of similar problems.

yes, we have spoken about that case many times on this site. While it may have been true that the mat caused the acelerator to stick, it is unclear why the family still had time to call 911 instead of putting the car to neutral, dislodging the mat, pressing on the brake, pressing on the hand brake, turning off the engine. the driver was a CHP officer too

And people complain about some of the BMW's not coming with floor mats. Death or no floor mat? hmmm......

chink

huu76 who are you blaming? The customers? NHSTA? What. Dude you are shooting the messenger, why?

The point isn't why he didn't do it, the point is why was it even necessary for him to do it in the first place?

The point isn't why he didn't do it, the point is why was it even necessary for him to do it in the first place?

"Toyota Mounts Largest Recall In U.S. History" - huh, and most who participate on this website bash American cars !

Looks like the truth hurts !

Is it the truth or what?

I'm sure this is the last thing Toyota needs. I remember back in the 1980's Toyota was an up and coming car company, striving to overtake GM who at the time, sold millions of vehicles every year, compared to Toyota's 100-200k per year volume.

Now Toyota has started to have the same dink, dink problems GM was infamous for.

What goes around.....

it certainly is what happens when you ramp up production...

A recall is a recall, just because it wasn't mandated by a government agency doesn't mean that it isn't a recall. Toyota is still spending untold sums of money to fix a problem that has significantly reduced the publics perception of them.

I've experienced this before (not in a Toyota) and it's scary as hell, so floor mats or engine, the result is serious.

All that guy had to do was turn off the key and apply the breaks.

in his defense, there is no key in the ES since it is push button start. What he needed to do was hold the push button start for 3 seconds which shuts down the engine

Then nail the brakes and pop it into neutral. Yes the engine will over rev, but I would rather do that than go over a cliff.

It's not as easy as you guys make it seem. Once in that situation, you would probably be worrying too much to think straight.

The fact that its a voluntary recall does not make it any better than a mandatory recall... It just makes Toyota a little more responsible (morally speaking) than a company who neglects the claims and wait until it escalates to a mandatory recall...

Besides, it does not matter if its floor mats, engines, or gas tanks. If it can cause death, it's defective.

huu76, a recall is when a company goes back on what they produced and spends time and money replacing/fixing their products. It does not to be initiated by the government, it does not need to be serious. It is what it is, now get over it.

Joe_Limon said it best, "a recall is when a company goes back on what they produced and spends time and money replacing/fixing their products"

What is so hard to accept or understand that some on here want to spin this as something else?

Once again quoting Joe_Limon, "..now get over it."

... most recalls only affect a handful of vehicles... or wait, did Toyota's frame rust issues skew your opinion of that?

It states right on the All Weather Mats to remove the Carpeted mats first. And there is a reason there are safety hook installed....

I'm sorry someone got killed, but he isn't the smartest anyway if he doesn't know how to shut a car off, or even tthrow it in Neutral......

You have to hold the button for 3 seconds, many people don't know that.

I am sure when this guy's car was out of control due to the excessive speed that holding the ignition button down for 3 seconds came to mind, not. When you are involved in a hihg speed crash, panic usually takes over. Plus the fact his kids were most likely screaming & his wife was hysterical. All he can think about is trying to keep the car straight & avoiding the cliff. I am sure he tried to slow the car down. That is alot of distraction. If he was in the car by himself, would he have faired better? Most likely...

With this being said, the floor mats are obviously a potential problem, since he is not the only person to have experienced it. It is good that Toyota is addressing this, but it is bad for their image. Safety

the GT-R is a hand built low production non profit car... we are talking about cars that are produced in the millions...

It is not only 100 that have this problem. Every vehicle manufactured under the recall has this defect. Only 100 have reported it.

OK my car has an factory all weather car mat that doesn't get stuck under the accelerator pedal; and my all weather car mat has no special clips or hooks. If the manufacturer of my car can do this why can't toyota.

Plus how does toyota/NHTSA know it is the car mats!

Federal investigators said of the 102 accidents caused by stuck gas pedals on Toyota vehicles, there are four possible causes involving the floor mats: The mats are too long or too thick, they weren't properly secured, the gas pedal design is flawed or the floor geometry is defective.

The wide array of causes presents a challenge to Toyota engineers who are trying to come up with a way to fix the problem that is leading to a recall of 3.8 million vehicles, including the Camry, the top-selling car in the U.S.

"We've evaluated a number of different years, makes and models of Toyota and don't believe that there is a one-size-fits-all answer as to why these incidents are occurring," said National Highway Traffic Safety Administration spokesman Rae Tyson on Tuesday. "I think Toyota is going to have a challenge on its hands to come up with a remedy that is going to address the problem."

Toyota spokesman John Hanson acknowledged the problem is more complex than vehicle floor mats alone, but involves the way the floor mat interacts with other parts of the vehicle.

"Other factors may be coming into play here," he said. "That's why we feel that probably the remedy could be different from vehicle to vehicle."

Keep saying that it's not a real recall and maybe it'll just go away?

Not sure that's the best way to cope with harsh realities of life, buddy. But then I'd supposed that's the expected response of someone who excessively complains, exaggerates, make up numbers, and sidetracks at times just to make his case more compelling.

"There's no right answer?"
But of course there is. The right course of action will be to execute this massive recall in the most efficient and cost effective way. Toyota will need to minimize damages to its image and continue to minimize its hundreds of millions of dollars in operating loss globally every month.