Court Documents Show Toyota Ignored Sudden Acceleration Reports From Own Technicians

who cares! Americans are stupid and will keep buying them regardless. Didn't Motor Trend just name the Camry mid sized car of the year!

For offenses like Toyota's they should lose all the awards just like USC and be banned from competition for a year!

YOU ARE 100% CORRECT

Simply put, Toyota owners are bad drivers.

"A report on Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal said that the National Highway Safety Traffic Administration had found that in many cases of unintended acceleration, drivers were actually pushing on the throttle pedal, not the brake pedal. NHTSA declined to comment on the report."

While this is probably true. The key difference is that the reports ignored were from Toyota factory trained technicians. With at least one replication of the issue. With that in mind you might think a red flag would have gone up.

When internal sources indicate you have a problem you need to investigate it, not blow them off.

One or six cars that has a propensity to accelerate, out of millions sold, does not a recall warrant. You simply can't recall an entire line of cars because of isolated incidents that cannnot be verified, replicated, and/or be shown to have a distinct cause. Therefore, once 2 likely causes were identified, 2 recalls were initiated. And the recalls covered millions more vehicles than would ever be affected by these EXTREMELY RARE incidents of real SUA.

This is the LA Times and ABC News trying to create new stories to cover the lousy reporting they have been doing all along on this issue. There is nothing NEW to this news. And this is in no way the smoking gun you and the aforemntioned sources want to force us to believe it is.

No doubt that most of these cases are indeed driver error. But when your own tech experiences the issue then investigate.

BTW: Did you actually hear my maniacal laugh from there?

When your own 6 technicians expereince six completely different, isolated incidents, you do not initiate a recall. When you find a defect causing this (2 possible defects, in fact), you do. There is nothing in this story that indicates that input from the technicians did not lead to the broader recalls eventually. But recalls do not occur form isolated incidents, certainly not SUA ones.

The investigation is what is suspect. Due diligence in these cases was not performed. That is the real issue. Did they investigate or did the blow it off?

they clearly investigated, which led to the 2 recalls. how does one not make that link? the issue has always been how quickly they investigated and recalled. My (and many others') contention is that they couldn't have investigated or recalled any more quickly due to the puzzling nature of SUA claims, the vast majority of which end up being driver error.

I bought an 08 Camry in March when my old Honda died. It's a nice car and I got a good deal on it. I doubt that there are any real serious issues with the car when it comes to unintended acceleration. If I had to guess I would say that the pedals are too close together. I have a fairly big foot and sometimes when I am on the brake my foot slips a little onto the gas. Obviously thats very easy to correct.
Also, with all the cases of last year nobody could replicate it. A few of those people were conning us. I think there may have been 1 or 2 valid cases.
Its not true that Toyota owners can't drive, just like most people a few have made driving mistakes.
T

TauronB2G- The odds are you probably have a better chance of being struck by lightening twice in your lifetime than experience any of the reported issues.

The real issue at hand is the follow up when these events (erroneous or not) were reported. If there is any guilt that is where it will be.

I don't think many people realize how politically charged a company can be, and sometime the most obvious issues don't ever see the light of day.

There are some major haters on this board. I got seriously deboosted. If I had low self esteem i'd be hurt.
T

@TauronB2G: You're point about your Camry's pedals being too close together is very interesting. I think issues as simple as that are often dismissed for being too obvious. I can see how drivers in a panic-stricken state would be more likely to accidentally step on both pedals without ever realizing it than they would under normal circumstances. And, if you're car is indeed unintentionally accelerating, it makes sense that you could make this mistake and assume that your breaks are not responding.

I'm tired of hearing about Toyota just fix the dam cars and pay the people involved and move forward. Oh that's what got them in trouble in the first place.

Most recalls deal with less than 1%

Most recalls work om probability and possibility. For instance when getting rear ended there lies a possibility in ALL cars the gas tank can explode. If it is deemed to high and occurs to often the car has to be recalled.

In all scenarios Toyota has lied to us and the government because if there where no problems or bugs. A few weeks ago they said it was driver error so "What did Toyota FIX when the said they fixed millions of cars a few months ago?

Im A democrat much like yourself!

UAW there digging there grave

@thetruth01 - 1 out of 6 equals 17%. By no means is than insignificant! You probably lost at least 17% in the market last year! Don't say that number is insignificant. Particularly when the Company wants to be considered a quality leader.

99.999% should be the goal!

@UAW

Please name a car company, or any corporation, that has not lied to the government, the press or its consumers.