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REPORTING FROM SEOUL -- In another corporate sputter for beleaguered Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp., the company announced Wednesday that it will recall more than 420,000 vehicles in the U.S. in connection with potential steering problems.

The safety recall to replace what the company termed “the crankshaft pulley on the V6 engine” affects 550,000 cars worldwide -- 283,200 Toyota and 137,000 Lexus vehicles.

The problem reportedly affects 38,000 cars in Japan and an additional 25,000 in Australia and New Zealand. In Europe, 14,000 vehicles face recall along with 10,000 in the Middle East and 14,000 in Asia outside Japan.

There have been no reports of accidents or injuries related to the problems, Toyota said in a release from its American headquarters in Torrance, Calif.

If not corrected, the outer ring of the engine's crankshaft pulley may become misaligned with the inner ring, causing noise or a warning signal to light up. The belt for the power steering pump may become detached from the pulley, making it suddenly more difficult to turn the driving wheel, the release said.

Since September 2009, Toyota has issued more than 13 million product recalls in the U.S. alone. With the company facing hundreds of lawsuits, safety experts and industry analysts contend that quality problems could haunt the world's largest automaker for years to come, affecting both its reputation and bottom line.

In February, Toyota announced that it would recall 2.17 million vehicles to correct mechanical defects that could cause them to accelerate out of control.

The latest U.S. recall includes the 2004 and 2005 Camry, Highlander, Sienna and Solara, the 2004 Avalon and the 2006 Highlander HV. The Lexus recall affects the 2004 and 2005 ES330 and RX330 and 2006 RX400h, officials said.

Starting in January, Toyota said, the company will mail owners a notification to make an appointment with an authorized dealer to have their cars inspected once a sufficient number of replacement parts have been produced.

Meanwhile, consumers who detect any abnormal noises are asked to make an appointment to have the vehicle inspected, the release said.

The company urged owners to with questions to visit the company's websites at www.toyota.com/recall or www.lexus.com/recall. They can also contact Toyota in the U.S. at 800-331-4331 or Lexus at 800-255-3987.

RELATED:

Toyota to recall 2.17 million more vehicles

Toyota recalls Avalon sedans, Lexus LX 470 SUVs

-- John M. Glionna

Toyota to recall 2.17 million more vehicles

Toyota's new round of recalls underlines the difficulty the automaker faces in trying to put sudden-acceleration problems behind it.

• 

Toyota is still developing a fix for the RAV4 and two other models, but it… (Justin Sullivan, Getty Images)

February 25, 2011|By Ken Bensinger and Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times

Try as it might, Toyota Motor Corp. can't seem to put its safety woes behind it.

Two weeks ago, the Japanese automaker trumpeted the results of a NASA study that cleared its vehicles of having electronic defects that could cause sudden acceleration.

But any hope that its biggest safety crisis was finally over dissolved Thursday, as Toyota announced that it would recall 2.17 million additional vehicles to correct mechanical defects that could cause them to accelerate out of control.

All told, Toyota has now issued more than 13 million product recalls since September 2009 in the U.S. alone. With hundreds of lawsuits pending, safety experts and industry analysts contend that quality problems could haunt the world's largest automaker for years to come, affecting both its reputation and bottom line.

The new recalls are "certain to revive consumer concerns about a safety issue the company has strived for a year to minimize," said Bill Visnic, senior analyst at automotive website Edmunds.com, adding that the news could further hurt Toyota's sales and market share.

Under pressure from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Toyota said Thursday that it was initiating two new recalls and expanding an existing recall to address defects that could cause accelerator pedals to become entrapped.

The action affects six Toyota and Lexus models, dating back as far as the 2003 model year and including the popular RAV4 and 4Runner SUVs, to fix floor mats that can entrap pedals as well as interior panels and pads that can interfere with pedals.

In a letter to government regulators Thursday, Toyota laid out an extensive number of repairs that it will be required to make, some of which have not yet been developed. In the case of the Highlander and the Lexus RX, Toyota said that it would repair the defect by replacing a carpet trim panel near the accelerator.

The repairs to the Lexus GS models involve the replacement of a plastic pad embedded in the carpet that can catch the accelerator pedal. And on the 4Runner, RAV4 and Lexus LX, Toyota is still developing a fix but will probably have to modify the gas pedal and a replace all-weather floor mats.

Toyota has now issued nearly 10 million recalls for sudden acceleration alone since September 2009, when it first said that floor mats could interfere with the gas pedal.

Four months later, the company said it had also determined that sticking pedals could produce sudden acceleration.

In the last year, it has paid three federal fines totaling nearly $50 million for delaying recalls.

According to NHTSA, the new recalls were the result of an investigation it launched a year ago into the scope of Toyota's original floor mat recall. In a statement, NHTSA Administrator David Strickland said the regulator had reviewed more than 400,000 pages of Toyota documents.

"As a result of the agency's review, NHTSA asked Toyota to recall these additional vehicles," Strickland said. "Now that the company has done so, our case is closed."

Toyota spokesman Brian Lyons stopped short of guaranteeing this would be the last sudden acceleration recall, but he predicted that the latest recalls would significantly reduce consumer complaints.

"We're confident that we have properly addressed the concerns here," he said.

Yet the drawn-out nature of the recalls, which have swelled over time to incorporate far more cars and trucks than originally announced, has given many consumers pause.

"Either [Toyota's] investigators were incompetent or they just had their head in the sand," said Barbara Shepherd of Harbor Springs, Mich., who said her 2005 Highlander accelerated on its own while in reverse, leading to a crash that caused her spinal and brain injuries.

Although Toyota recalled some Highlanders in 2006 to address a sudden acceleration risk from pedal entrapment, Shepherd's vehicle was not included. As part of its latest recalls, Toyota said it would recall 397,000 Highlanders, as well as 372,000 Lexus RX SUVs.

That action would have included Shepherd's. She is suing the automaker.

Toyota's attempts to deal with sudden acceleration go back years, including a 2007 recall to address floor mat entrapment. And its 2009 floor mat recall, initiated after a San Diego crash that left four people dead and drew national attention to the issue, has been expanded three times since it was first announced — growing to 6.4 million vehicles from the original 3.8 million.

Clarence Ditlow, who heads the Center for Auto Safety, said his group continues to receive credible complaints about sudden acceleration, however, leading him to suspect there may be problems beyond floor mats and gas pedals.

"What are they going to blame next? They have done carpets and they have done pedals," he said.

BLEEDING RED, TOYOTA IS FINISHED.
Toyota's Domestic Plant Problem
By JAMES SIMMS
Toyota Motor shot itself in the foot again at the start of 2011 with its third consecutive year of large-scale January recalls.

But those quality issues are only part of the problem confronting Toyota: It isn't making enough money from making cars because of excess production capacity in Japan and not enough overseas.

On Tuesday, Toyota upgraded its operating-profit forecast for the year through March to $6.7 billion, a huge surge from last year's $1.8 billion, helped by cost cuts and higher sales volume. It also posted a $5.1 billion profit in the first three quarters, seven times what it earned a year earlier.

While that is a major improvement, the equivalent of two-thirds of that lift in the nine-month profit is derived from the U.S. auto-financing unit. Most of that comes from write-backs on provisions previously set aside for car-loan defaults and declines in the resale value of cars coming off leases.

What is hurting Toyota is that compared with its rivals, a higher proportion of its cars are sold overseas but made in Japan. This increases the company's exposure to currency swings. Excess capacity in a shrinking domestic market also hurts.

At the parent-company level, which is where the dividend is paid, the red ink continues to flow. The company forecasts a $5.1 billion operating loss, although it is more than compensated for by dividends from subsidiaries and income from its massive financial assets, including $39 billion in Japanese government bonds. While these profits may hide the weakness in its core car-making business, it's hard to look past one fact: Toyota expects parent net profit to be about $1 billion this year, a far cry from March 2008's record $13.9 billion.

Toyota needs to move more quickly to address some of its shortcomings, particularly its reliance on Japanese plants. After all, Toyota knows only too well from the recall crisis that indecisiveness can hurt badly.

Toyota will recall 1.13 million Corolla and Matrix cars for a flaw that U.S. regulators said may cause stalling "at any speed without warning." The recall affects vehicles from the 2005-2008 model years in the United States and Canada and follows at least three reported accidents linked to the defect.

The action adds to record recalls in the past year by Toyota, including more than 8 million vehicles worldwide for flaws related to unintended acceleration.

The recall also covers about 200,000 of General Motors' Pontiac Vibe hatchbacks, according to a statement from GM. Vibes and Matrixes were manufactured in a GM- Toyota joint venture in California.

- Bloomberg News

                ^ " CIVIL WAR HAS BEEN DECLARED "

Dear President Obama,

WE THE PEOPLE, demand that YOU take action today to Stop The Murder of American Citizens by Toyota. PLEASE issue an Emergency "Presidential Order" that prevents Toyota from Selling Any MORE products within the borders Of The U.S.A.

The deceit, greed & arrogance demonstrated by the Corporate leaders of Toyota has incensed us to declare "Civil War" upon this Company...with no holds barred. This terrorism MUST BE STOPPED.

If, indeed YOU are unable to deliver an END to Toyota in the U.S.A., trust that WE THE PEOPLE WILL. This loss of life, THE INHERENT RISK TO OUR SAFETY ON THE ROAD is all unacceptable to us.

We ask that you LIQUIDATE TOYOTA NOW, confiscate all of the property & revenues as an ACT OF TERRORISM that has resulted in a premeditated "TERRORIST attack upon the Country" & thereby assign TOYOTA assets to compensate the victims, owners & costs to eliminate all vestiges of Toyota in the United States of America.

Please review the complete history of "TOYODA", as it is a true "weapon of mass destruction" as in the original intent of the company, supported & decreed by the Japanese Government.

WE ask you to close ALL TOYOTA factories, rescind all Tax Credits, & government support, and use the resulting proceeds of total liquidation to provide a fund to compensate the AMERICAN workers who have been "duped" into slavery by this tyrannical company.

Further we ask that ALL TOYOTA DEALERSHIPS CEASE & DESIST FROM EFFORTS TO SELL ALL TOYOTA PRODUCTS, (TOYOTA, LEXUS & SCION ) Immediately, and under threat of "Use Of Force".

No other company in America, has been allowed to KILL our people, without suffering monumental costs, OR TOTAL DEMISE, relative to earnings. A $13 million dollar "fine" is ineffectual to the degree of "War Crimes" committed by Toyota to date.

It is an absolute INSULT that this company is still allowed to market their "deadly" cars & trucks, without any REAL REMORSE OR COMPENSATION, and to continue the bold face LIES to both Congress & the People of the U.S.A.

What TOYOTA has done by definition ...is TREASON. They HAVE betrayed the TRUST by the people of the U.S.A. for self gain.
But they have NO RESPECT for that, as a "Non American" company.

PLEASE PROTECT OUR INTERESTS & "STEP UP" TO KICK ASS !

Thank You,

WE THE PEOPLE.




TOYOTA TRASHES THE CORPORATE ORGANIZATION IN A SAD ATTEMPT TO SAVE THE SELF DESTRUCTING CAR COMPANY...


Safety is first, then environmental quality. The board will be cut from 27 members to 11 (it had 54 members eight years ago). Emerging markets will be a larger piece of its business, and all this will contribute to Toyota’s goal of raising consolidated operating return on sales to 5 percent.

Scion Akio Toyoda outlined this plan, this “Global Vision” in Tokyo. It’s a kind of reorganization, an effort to avoid being caught in the kind of trap that did General Motors in and allowed Toyota to pass it in global sales some three years ago.

Toyota doesn’t expect to let Volkswagen AG pass it to become the world’s largest automaker – thus the concentration on emerging markets. The Japanese automaker sold 60 percent of its output in industrialized nations last year. It expects to have a 50/50 mix of sales to industrialized nations and emerging markets by 2015. Bloomberg reports that Toyoda said the company could sell 9 million vehicles per year by ’15.

Toyoda’s most important promise, though, is that his company “will build a global framework in which 1) the global headquarters will provide overall direction and furnish support for initiatives undertaken by the regional operations and 2) regional operations – the company’s customer interface – will decide on their own how best to serve their customers.”

It’s the strength of number 2 that will determine how well Toyota can recover from its quality and safety perception problems. If Toyota’s North American operations had been in charge of responding to unintended acceleration claims and the other problems that plagued the company here last year, the damage would have been less severe. Instead, Toyota Motor Corporation continued to call the shots from Tokyo, and it handled the crisis in a way consistent with its home market, where corporations have more power in relationship to the government, press and consumers than it has here.

The company’s operations here are called Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., which means “sales and marketing.” That doesn’t entail its production, or any of the other functions that Toyota claims makes it as much an American operation as a Japanese one.

Most of Toyoda’s presentation centered on promises of continuous improvement and of contributing to communities while trying to exceed customer expectations. Its Global Vision even has a tagline: “Rewarded with a smile by exceeding your expectations.”

To wit: “Toyota will lead the way to the future of mobility, enriching lives around the world with the safest and most responsible ways of moving people. Through our commitment to quality, constant innovation and respect for the planet, we aim to exceed expectations and be rewarded with a smile. We will meet challenging goals by engaging the talent and passion of people, who believe there is always a better way.”

Touchy-feely platitudes aside, Toyota says it will launch “about 10 more” hybrid models by 2015, while continuing to develop a full range of plug-in hybrids, pure electric vehicles and fuel cell powertrains, while continuing to improve conventional gasoline engine fuel economy. It will “position Lexus as a truly global premium brand” by offering a growing range of Lexus models in emerging markets, while expanding the Lexus sales network in established markets.

In North America and Europe, Toyota will “maximize productivity at existing plants and otherwise make the most of existing resources.” In other words, we’re not likely to get any new North American Toyota factories for a while, and may even lose some production.

Toyoda’s wish to revive passion in the company his grandfather built is addressed under “product appeal.” To “create great cars,” Toyota will “greatly improve the design and feel of Toyota models and make way for the leading role of localization in vehicle production.” Toyota will “offer genuinely exciting models that meet the needs of each market.”

Because Toyota first needs to restore confidence in a model lineup whose key attributes have been safety, reliability, efficiency and environmental responsibility, I’d suspect bland, competent sedans and hybrids will take precedence over the sports cars that Toyoda so much wants to build.

Read more: http://blogs.motortrend.com/motor-city-blogman-toyota-avoid-becoming-gm-gm-like-reorganization-7687.html#ixzz1Hyd6erJc



THE TRUTH ABOUT ALL THE PROBLEMS ARE REVEALED AND POSTED FOR YOU HERE TO SEE & TO ALLOW YOU SOME PROTECTION;


DO NOT BUY ANY TOYOTA, LEXUS OR SCION PRODUCTS, if you are a "victim" OF PRESENT OWNERSHIP, BURN, CRUSH OR DESTROY YOUR (OR ANY) TOYOTA IN STATEMENT OF PROTEST.

OTHERWISE...YOU ARE RISKING YOUR LIFE & OURS. SORRY BUT YOUR AN IDIOT, & TOYOTA THINKS YOU MUST BE ANYWAY OR WORSE IF YOU BUY THIS :

Lawyers who have battled Toyota in court cases say the company is contradicting itself.

"Sometimes they've claimed it's unreliable, other times they say they can't even access the data, and now they're holding it up as proof that they're innocent," said Steve Van Gaasbeck, a Texas attorney who has been stymied by Toyota in several attempts to get EDR data admitted in trials. "They want it both ways."

In 2005, Toyota engineer Motoki Shibata argued in an affidavit filed in federal court in New Jersey that the downloaded data from a 2002 Corolla should not be entered into evidence. He stated that EDR data "is used by the manufacturer for quality purposes only" and that Toyota "does not rely on such crash data to reconstruct accidents in the field."

Two years later, Toyota technical analysis manager Mark Jakstis told a New Jersey state court that an EDR readout of a wrecked 2003 Echo was "unreliable." He noted numerous errors, including data indicating that the passenger wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Both plaintiffs and defendants agreed that the passenger was buckled in.

Toyota, Jakstis concluded, "cannot vouch for the reliability of any data downloaded," from the black box, court records show. The judge agreed to exclude the readout.

In late 2008, Toyota posted a Q&A on black boxes on its website noting that its readout tool was not scientifically validated and that the company "does not have confidence that the readout reports it generates are accurate."

Because of that, and the fact that the automaker had only one such tool in the U.S., the site said, "Toyota will not honor EDR readout requests from private individuals or their attorneys."

GO DO YOUR PART TO KEEP OUR STREETS SAFE... IT COST YOU NOTHING TO DO THIS EXCEPT A "YOU TUBE VIDEO POST":


^ ORDER A BOX OF (12) TOYOTA RECALL FIX BUMPER "WARNING" STICKERS NOW USE THEM TO INFLICT MAXIMUM INSULT TO TOYOTA !

RECORD YOUR "REVOLUTIONARY" EFFORT AND POST IT UP ON YOU TUBE.

JUST CLICK ON THE "BUY NOW" BUTTON BELOW AND THEN TAKE THEM OUT TO ANY PARKING LOT & TO YOUR LOCAL TOYOTA DEALERSHIPS SO YOU CAN PASTE THEM ONTO THE FRONT BUMPER OF EVERY TOYOTA YOU SEE !!

...GIVE THE REST OF US A "FAIR WARNING" OF THE CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER ON THE ROAD TODAY ! ... IT IS TIME TO DESTROY TOYOTA !!! ;

TO GET A BOX OF STICKERS ; SEND AN EMAIL TO US : PETER@STINGRAYSSTUDIOS.COM

THE STICKERS ARE FREE !!!.... USE THEM TO INFLICT MAXIMUM INSULT & EFFECT NOW !!!!
WELL, THERE IS A PRICE : YOU NEED TO VIDEO TAPE YOUR USE AND UPLOAD IT TO YOU TUBE



IT IS TIME TO END THE NIGHTMARE...LIQUIDATE TOYOTA NOW !!!
Pay off the owner's of their junk piles, & compensate the Victims...
SEND ALL THE TOYOTA'S TO THE CRUSHER, SAVE OUR STREETS !!!

.... AND NOW FOR TOYOTA'S NEXT MAGICAL "TRICK" :

Despite Recalls, Toyota Reports $1.2 Billion Profit

By HIROKO TABUCHI

Published: May 11, 2010

Toyota had a particularly strong performance in the three months through March — the period when the Japanese automaker recalled millions of cars and was under the intense scrutiny of consumers and governments around the world.

Profit for the three months was 112 billion yen ($1.2 billion), in contrast to a 766 billion yen loss the year before, as the automaker slashed costs and introduced aggressive sales incentives that lured customers back to its showrooms.

Quarterly revenue jumped to 5.28 trillion yen, from 3.54 trillion yen the previous year, when car sales slumped in the middle of the global financial crisis. Revenues showed an especially strong rebound in the Chinese market and in the United States, while sales in Europe and Japan continued to slump.

In March, global sales rose 26 percent from the previous year, partly because of generous incentives offered in the United States, while global production surged 80 percent.

“After taking over amid a storm, I wanted to do anything to avoid a third straight year in the red,” Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota, said after the earnings announcement.

“These results follow tough and anguishing decisions” on the part of Toyota’s management, he said, referring to the automaker’s dismissal of workers both in Japan and overseas amid companywide cost cuts.

Toyota estimated that its profit would rise to 310 billion yen ($3.34 billion) in the year that will end in March 2011. It expects to sell 7.29 million units, or 53,000 more than it sold this year, the automaker said. Toyota also announced a cash dividend for the full fiscal year of 45 yen a share.

For the business year that just ended, net income rebounded to 209.4 billion yen ($2.25 billion), from a loss of 437 billion yen the previous year.

“We’re still in a storm — there’s been no change on that front,” Mr. Toyoda said. “But from the storm, we’ve begun to see glimpses of sunny but faraway skies,” he said. “I feel that we’re starting to approach safer waters.”

Still, the automaker faces tough challenges ahead. It has come under renewed scrutiny in the United States, where the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened yet another inquiry Monday into the company’s handling of potentially dangerous problems.

The agency said it was investigating whether Toyota had waited too long to inform the agency of steering-relay rod defects in Hilux trucks after a 2004 recall in Japan for the same flaw. Automakers have five business days to report safety flaws to regulators under American law.

Toyota sells the Tacoma truck, similar to the Hilux model, in the United States. At that time, Toyota told regulators that the defect was in vehicles sold only in Japan and the company had not received similar information in the United States, the agency said. In 2005, Toyota told the agency that the defect was indeed in models sold in the United States and conducted a recall.

The Transportation Department is also looking through 500,000 pages of documents to determine whether to levy additional fines against the Japanese carmaker, a process that could take months.

Toyota has recalled more than nine million vehicles worldwide for faulty accelerator pedals and other problems that have tarnished the company’s reputation for making safe and reliable cars.

Toyota also faces multiple shareholder lawsuits, as well as consumer lawsuits claiming injuries or deaths caused by sudden acceleration incidents in Toyota vehicles.

In April, Toyota agreed to pay a $16.4 million fine imposed by the Transportation Department, the largest allowed by American law, which charged that the company had hidden information about one of the pedal-related recalls.

Toyota has not admitted fault. But it faces the possibility of at least two more such fines, although it could be several months before action is taken, the transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, said on Monday in Japan after a visit to Toyota’s headquarters in Toyota City.

Last month, Moody’s Investors Service cut Toyota’s credit rating, warning that the effects of recent recalls and a still-sluggish economy would weigh on the automaker’s bottom line for some time.

But Takahiko Ijichi, senior managing director at Toyota, suggested those fears were overblown. “The effects of the recall have been smaller than we’d expected,” Mr. Ijichi said. The company has said it spent 100 billion yen on recall-related measures, and lost 70 billion yen to 80 billion yen in sales during the year that ended March 31.

Mr. LaHood said Monday that he sensed a change of attitude at Toyota since February, when Mr. Toyoda solemnly faced questions before a Congressional panel and spoke with Toyota dealers, choking back tears.

The automaker, which faced “very, very serious credibility problems” after the crisis, has changed gears, while Mr. Toyoda has “listened and paid attention,” Mr. LaHood said.

Makiko Inoue contributed reporting from Tokyo.

SOUNDS FANTASTIC ....RIGHT !...???....BUT, IT IS JUST MORE LIES & DECEPTION FROM TOYOTA :

Toyota Financial Services has requested a $2B loan from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, a government-backed lending institution. TFS says it needs the money to cover the higher cost of borrowing in the US. According to Automotive News [sub], “Toyota may be the first of a string of Japanese companies with high credit ratings to turn to state-backed loans prior to the closing of books for the business year at the end of March.” Toyota’s “implied” credit rating based on credit-default swaps is considerably lower than its current Moody’s rating, as fears grow about liquidity problems across the automotive industry. The money will come from a $5B fund established by the Japanese government to provide liquidity for firms which operate abroad. These funds are said to come from Japan’s $1T+ in foreign cash reserves, the world’s second-largest foreign currency reserves after China. Nissan and Mitsubishi have also said they will apply for loans from this fund.

^ That is IN ADDITION to the $25 B also loaned to Toyo for USA Operations !!!

Fuck Them....the truth is that TOYOTA BORROWED ABOUT $27B LAST YEAR, LOST OVER $4B & NOW HAS THE NERVE TO SAY THEY MADE A $1.2B PROFIT !!!....PATHETIC. THE YAKUZA MUST BE COOKING THEIR BOOKS FOR THEM SO THEY CAN BORROW MORE MONEY FROM THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT.

If I made cars from old tuna cans with sewing machines motors & no driver controlled interface to sell to uneducated consumers, after I reduced ALL the component costs by 30%,....Hell, I could make a HUGE KILLING too !!

It's called FRAUD...but what the fuck...it's Bank !!!!

Toyota hit with $16M fine over recalls in US

WASHINGTON – Five days before Toyota announced a massive recall, a U.S. public relations executive at the automaker warned colleagues in an internal e-mail: "We need to come clean" about accelerator problems, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday.

"We are not protecting our customers by keeping this quiet," wrote Irv Miller, group vice president for environment and public affairs. "The time to hide on this one is over."

"We better just hope that they can get NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) to work with us in coming (up) with a workable solution that does not put us out of business," Miller wrote.

"I hate to break this to you but WE HAVE A tendency for MECHANICAL failure in accelerator pedals of a certain manufacturer on certain models," Miller's e-mail began with several words in capital letters.
In a memo earlier that day, Koganei wrote Mike Michels, vice president of external communications, "Now I talked with you on the phone, we should not mention about the mechanical failures of acc. pedal because we have not clarified the real cause of the sticking acc pedal formally, and the remedy for the matter has not been confirmed."

Toyota, in a statement, said it "does not comment on internal company communications" and declined comment on Miller's e-mail. But the automaker said: "We have publicly acknowledged on several occasions that the company did a poor job of communicating during the period preceding our recent recalls."

Concerns about sticking gas pedals and complaints from Toyota owners in the U.S. were rising at the end of 2009, according to documents obtained by the AP. The documents show that on Sept. 29, Toyota's European division issued technical information "identifying a production improvement and repair procedure to address complaints by customers in those countries of sticking accelerator pedals, sudden rpm increase and/or sudden vehicle acceleration."

The Japanese automaker was still weighing its options Wednesday about whether to accept or contest the fine. It has also been named in 138 potential class-action lawsuits over falling vehicle values and nearly 100 personal injury and wrongful death cases in federal courts.

More here http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100408/ap_on_bi_ge/us_toyota_recall The Humbling of Toyota

A combination of high-speed global growth and ambitious cost cuts led to the quality lapses that have tarnished the once-mighty brand. How it all went wrong
By Alan Ohnsman, Jeff Green and Kae Inoue

Toyota Motor has always been fanatical about frugality, and for many years that was good for both the company and its customers. This is a Japanese carmaker that routinely turned down the heat at its employee dormitories during working hours and labeled photocopy machines with the cost per copy to discourage overuse. Its engineers collaborated with suppliers to extract cost-savings without compromising quality. Yet by the middle of the last decade Toyota's virtue had become a vice.

So say current and former auto executives who are trying to grasp how Toyota, with its gold-plated reputation for engineering excellence, slipped up on such a scale, with 8 million cars recalled due to mechanical failures linked by U.S. regulators to 51 deaths. Before company officials knew that runaway acceleration was causing crashes, one of these executives says, a simple manufacturing process would sometimes ignite small fires in a component as a direct result of corner-cutting. It was just one early sign that the focus on cost reduction had gone too far.

Those production mishaps occurred in 2006, a year after company President Katsuaki Watanabe boasted about having squeezed more than $10 billion from global operating costs in the previous six years—this despite an impressive run of profit growth and global market share gains in the middle of the last decade. Then Toyota pushed even harder for more cuts. It asked suppliers to design parts for its Camry midsize sedan that were 10% cheaper and 10% lighter. The company's top U.S. executive, Jim Press, warned his bosses in Japan that vehicle quality was slipping, according to a slide presentation U.S. Senate investigators unearthed in their sudden-acceleration probe. But his warning had no apparent effect.

The redesigned Camry brought out in 2006 had an embarrassing flaw in its headliner, the fabric and composite lining that covers the inside roof of the car. Under pressure to cut costs, the lead Camry supplier, Toyota-affiliated Toyota Boshoku, chose a carbon fiber material that hadn't been approved by Toyota engineers, according to an executive who worked on the redesign. The headliner is made by compressing layers of materials together using a certain amount of heat to mold it. In this case, the carbon fiber required so much heat that the headliner would catch fire.

Toyota fixed that problem, but when a North American parts supplier interested in working with the automaker did a teardown of a 2007 Camry, its engineers were surprised by how much the traditional Toyota craftsmanship had been watered down by years of nips and tucks. The padding in the ceiling of the car, though compliant with safety regulations, had been thinned out to save money. A tray for sunglasses used a flimsier type of plastic than previous models. "It was a bare-bones car at that point," says one executive who declined to be identified for fear of harming business ties with Toyota.

Toyota insists its focus on cost hasn't hurt consumers. "It's not true that by reducing cost you automatically reduce quality," said Jim Wiseman, Toyota's vice-president for North American corporate communications. "Every automaker has to stay competitive relative to price."

True, but probably not with the intensity Toyota brought to cost-cutting and rapid expansion under three successive presidents: Hiroshi Okuda (1995-1999), Fujio Cho (1999-2005), and Watanabe (2005 to 2009). Toyota executives will spend years mopping up after their mess.

At last count, the company faced 109 class actions and 32 individual cases filed in courts in the U.S. and Canada. (In a well-publicized incident on Mar. 8, the owner of a 2008 Prius lost control of his car on a California interstate highway and had to be rescued by police.)





    ^ TECHNICAL SERVICE BULLETIN REPORT FROM 2002 EXPLAINS THE SUDDEN ACCELERATION CAUSES !!!!
IT IS TIME TO "KILL OFF" TOYOTA ONCE & FOR ALL, THEY ARE SCUM AND THEY HAVE "MURDERED" PEOPLE.


As grave as the current troubles are, they are symptomatic of a larger problem at Toyota: It got carried away chasing high-speed growth, market share, and productivity gains year in and year out. All that slowly dulled the commitment to quality embedded in Toyota's corporate culture.

"The root cause of their problems is that the company was hijacked, some years ago, by anti-[Toyoda] family, financially oriented pirates," Press charged in a recent interview with Bloomberg News. Once the highest-ranking American at the company, with a seat on the board of directors, Press left in 2007 to join Chrysler as vice-chairman and president, but departed from there after last year's bankruptcy. The financial pirates, he said, "didn't have the character necessary to maintain a customer-first focus."

The embodiment of character at Toyota, as any new engineering hire there learns, is a man named Taiichi Ohno, the innovator widely credited as the genius behind the Toyota Production System. With a handful of other executives during the 1950s, Ohno developed a set of in-house precepts on carmaking efficiency that later evolved into such concepts as lean manufacturing and just-in-time inventory management. Ohno's ideas not only changed the auto industry, they changed late-20th-century manufacturing. At their core was an attention to detail and a noble frugality that shunned waste of every kind. As Ohno's concepts were handed down to successive generations of Toyota executives, however, the purity of the message appears to have been slowly lost.

The traditions of the company began to change in 1995 when family elders, led by then-Chairman Shoichiro Toyoda, tapped Okuda to take over the company from 68-year-old Tatsuro Toyoda, who had been waylaid by a stroke. The company was widely thought to have lost its edge, and Okuda (a black belt in judo) was just the sort of hard-charger to help get it back.

In jobs ranging from accounting and purchasing to international and domestic sales, he was a nonstop manager who liked to test-drive every Toyota under development. He also could be impolitic. In 1995, Okuda called his Detroit rivals "stupid" for trying to import bulky cars ill suited to Japan's narrow side streets.

Toyota needed Okuda's in-your-face approach. Glacial decision-making and poor execution were resulting in major mistakes. Toyota stuck with conservatively styled sedans when everybody in the U.S. and Japan wanted the more daring, off-road stuff. It also botched some key product launches. It introduced the T100 truck in the U.S. with an underpowered engine, and a 1995 redesign of the Corolla for the Japanese market fell flat.

Okuda and his team started turning things around on the product front while embarking on one of the most aggressive overseas expansions in automotive history. Between 1995 and the end of 2009, Toyota roughly doubled, to 50, the number of overseas plants and manufacturing facilities in North America, Asia, and Europe in a bid to improve its market responsiveness and sidestep potential trade disputes about car exports from Japan. This coincided with a massive product rollout that penetrated new categories ranging from the boxy Scion xB to the one-ton Tundra pickup to the hybrid Prius compact. In the U.S., Toyota gained market share at "a kind of speed no other carmaker has ever experienced in the past," said Koji Endo, an analyst with Advanced Research Japan in Tokyo.

By the late 1990s the Corolla sedan and the 4Runner and RAV4 sport-utility offerings were all selling well, and plans were under way to invade Detroit's cash-cow minivan and large pickup truck categories. In the all-important North American market, Okuda spent big to double total vehicle capacity, to 1.2 million units, by 1998. To launch the Sienna minivan, he expanded capacity at Toyota's Georgetown (Ky.) plant, already the production base for its Camry and Avalon sedans.

Early in Okuda's tenure as president there was a lot of talk about grabbing a 10% share of the global auto market. By the time he moved up to the chairman's job in 1999 to make way for Cho, the goal was 15%. Cho was less flamboyant than Okuda and studied law at the prestigious University of Tokyo. Yet early in his career Cho became fascinated with the Toyota Production System and mastered its best practices. (He put that knowledge to use in 1988, supervising the launch of the Georgetown plant.) Cho often talked about the "criticality of speed" in product development cycles and the importance of responding to changes in the marketplace. Ohno's precepts were beginning to morph into something he might not have recognized.

By 2003 a lot of things were going right at Toyota. Profits were booming, and in November of that year it enjoyed a market capitalization of $110 billion—more than that of GM, Ford, and DaimlerChrysler combined. (Today, despite its troubles, Toyota is valued at $132 billion.) In the U.S. it had finally pieced together a strong lineup of high-margin SUVs, once the profit sanctuary of U.S. automakers, ranging from the $19,000 RAV4 to the $65,000 Lexus LX470. Meanwhile, the Prius was starting to take off, creating mass market interest in eco-friendly cars.

At the same time, Cho, Okuda, and other top executives were pushing ahead with a program dubbed CCC21 ("Construction of Cost Competitiveness for the 21st Century") that had been started in 1998. In implementing CCC21, no detail was too small. For instance, Toyota designers took a close look at the grip handles mounted above the door inside most cars. By working with suppliers they managed to cut the number of parts to five from 34, which helped cut procurement costs by 40%. The change slashed the time needed for installation by 75%—to three seconds. "The pressure is on to cut costs at every stage," Takashi Araki, a project manager at parts maker and Toyota affiliate Aisin Seiki, told BusinessWeek at the time.

By mid-decade, when Watanabe, a trained economist, became president, Toyota had incredible numbers to share with Wall Street analysts. On the job as Toyota's chief executive for less than three months, Watanabe told New York's financial community at a Sept. 12, 2005, meeting in Manhattan that CCC21 had wrung out more than $10 billion in savings over six years. "Under CCC21 activities, which I led, Toyota realized cost reductions of more than 200 billion yen ($2.2 billion) a year on a consolidated basis," he said.

It wasn't enough. Next up was what he called an "aggressive version of CCC21," dubbed Value Innovation, which promised more savings by making the entire development process cheaper and faster, further trimming parts, production costs, and time to market. Toyota had managed to slash the time it took to bring models into production once a design was final to about 12 months, compared with an industry average of between 24 and 36 months.

A credit bubble and soaring home prices in the U.S. had Americans buying Camrys and Lexus SUVs in droves. Toyota raked in $55 billion in operating income during its fiscal years running from 2006 to 2008. Shares traded in Tokyo (Toyota also has stock listed in New York and London) shot up 112% from mid-2005 to February of 2007.

Yet during these hyperspeed growth years there were signs of trouble. That's when Press, Toyota Motor's top U.S. executive, warned his bosses that quality was slipping and that regulators were stepping up scrutiny.

Reports of more serious problems started to get the attention of U.S. regulators far earlier in the decade. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened eight investigations of unintended acceleration of Toyota vehicles from 2003 to 2010, according to Safety Research & Strategies, a Rehoboth (Mass.) group that gathers data from NHTSA and other sources for plaintiff's attorneys and consumers, though the carmaker's problems only became widely known to the public this year.

Toyota's fortunes, and that of the entire industry, took a nasty turn starting in late 2007 as the financial crisis hit and oil prices spiked to $145 per barrel in July of 2008—a combination that brought on the global recession that later pushed GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy. Last September, at a meeting with Toyota investors in Tokyo, Akio Toyoda, who succeeded Watanabe in June 2009, said an annual goal had been to boost global sales by as many as 700,000 vehicles a year, more than three times the previous increase, according to a former executive who attended the gathering. The accelerated production had outstripped the abilities of company engineers and led Toyota to outsource more development work to suppliers.

On Feb. 24 of this year, the grandson of company founder Kiichiro Toyoda said during testimony before a congressional committee: "I fear the pace at which we have grown may have been too quick....Priorities became confused, and we were not able to stop, think, and make improvements as much as we were able to before."

Toyoda and other top executives have vowed to fix the sudden-acceleration problems and other quality lapses that have surfaced in so many of its models. In a bid to win back customers, Toyota is offering incentives such as no-interest loans and discounted leases, which may reignite sales. Still, Toyoda and his team will be spending many months trying to absorb a painful lesson about what happens to a great company when ambition gets too far ahead of tradition.

DO YOU DRIVE A TOYOTA CORROLA ?...OH ...NOOOO ! :

http://content.usatoday.com/communities ... titialskip



The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a probe last November into 26 complaints of engines stalling in 2006 Corolla and Matrix models, the Free Press' Justin Hyde reports. Since then, the number of complaints has mushroomed to 76. Several owners said the problem happened without warning. Sometimes the engine was hard to restart or kept stalling. There were no reports of injuries or crashes linked to the models.

The stalling can happen at bad times, such as when drivers are trying to merge onto highways.

In a letter to NHTSA, Toyota said the problems was due to physical faults in the production of the vehicles' engine control units, which it blamed on mistakes at two suppliers, one of which was identified as Delphi, the Free Press said.


"Toyota has been investigating this issue and is now considering how to address our customer concerns," the automaker said in a March 2 letter to NHTSA obtained by the Free Press. "Based upon its analysis, Toyota does not believe that the alleged defect creates an unreasonable risk to motor vehicle safety."


The automaker said the problems would always trigger a dashboard warning light, and estimated the problem would only affect 0.8% of the models in question over 10 years. It added that while some owners were "inconvenienced" by engine stalls, they were "preferable as opposed to allowing the engine to become damaged."

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      STINGRAYSSTUDIOS EDITORIAL COMMENT ON THE "DEATH OF TOYOTA" :

If indeed we take the "Big Picture" and put all of this into perspective, the question is not really about people who died in automobiles, rather it is that:

FOR OVER 10 YEARS TOYOTA HAS DELIBERATELY AND WITH INTENT TO SERVE ONLY THEIR OWN BOTTOM LINE, SOLD VEHICLES THAT IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER WERE & ARE DEFECTIVE IN PRIMARY FUNCTIONAL OPERATIONS AS REQUIRED BY ALL AUTOMOBILES, (ie.) ACCELERATION, BRAKING, SHIFTING GEARS, CHASSIS FOUNDATION, RADIATOR COOLING, SEAT BELTS & OTHER AREAS OF NEED TO DEPEND UPON THE SAFE OPERATION OF AN AUTOMOBILE.

Toyota has failed to acknowledge what is so obvious, that the products are NOT Qualified to deserve the "promotional reputation" of quality they have purported to have attained. That is just a bold Face LIE, one devised as a "sales gimmick" to increase the market share of the company, by deceptive trade practices aimed at those buyers who are not well versed in automobiles.

More so than that, in the last 10 years, by Toyota's OWN ADMISSION, the company has been "taken over" by industrial "pirates" from within the company, WHO UNDER "MARKET PRESSURE" decreased the manufacturing cost of over 180 component parts used in ALL Toyota products resulting in a 30% reduction in each, increasing the corporate profits, and lowering the reliability of the "whole" construction design, hence the reason (so say Toyota) for installing a new CEO & bringing back the "Family" name into leadership of the deteriorating corporation,of course this was done just as the "sushi hit the floor", and the recalls were unavoidable.

The previous management ALL resigned or "retired" in the last 24 months, taking their profits with them, leaving the public to deal with the garbage they had been sold, and sold to them with FULL KNOWELGE that the cars & trucks ARE DEFECTIVE.

That is the Real Point here, in proper perspective...it is NOT about numbers or even recalls, as that of course is a condition of all manufacturing, instead it is the greed and malice with which Toyota has "covered up" and continued to sell poorly designed & malfunctioning products and the degree of severity of those malfunctions.

This is all about ethics, trust and consumer rights to be able to safely engage in the ownership of an automobile which is a big ticket purchase, and be able to trust that this is a reliable product for the use of families and commerce.

Toyota has and still to this day, failed to deliver that.

Worse, they are continuing to make excuses and offer "band aid" repairs in order to sell MORE cars !!! Claiming that they "don't recall" or "were not aware" of the complaints or even the deaths caused by their products !!

BS. THEY KNEW. THEY DID NOT CARE.

THAT IS THE PROPER PERSPECTIVE HERE & NOW.

As Auto Designers, it is vital that WE really do understand exactly what has happened here, as this is a extreme example of "Design Failure" resulting in disaster & tragedy.

 TOYOTA LIED TO THE U.S.A. ON CAPITOL HILL :
      
       ^CLICK ABOVE FOR TOYOTA CRASH VIDEOS !

   THE DEATH OF TOYOTA :

    Toyota chief blasted by lawmakers despite apology

WASHINGTON — Under blistering criticism, Toyota President Akio Toyoda personally and repeatedly apologized to Congress and millions of anxious American car-owners Wednesday for deadly defects in popular models produced by his Japanese company. But angry lawmakers forcefully declared it was hardly enough.

"Where is the remorse?" scolded Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio. And Republican John Mica of Florida held aloft what he called an "absolutely appalling" Toyota report bragging of defusing a safety investigation.

Of Toyoda's apology, Kaptur said, "I do not think it reflects significant remorse for those who have died." Federal safety officials have received reports linking 34 deaths in the United States to safety defects in Toyota cars and trucks over the past decade.

"I extend my sincerest condolences to them from the bottom of my heart," responded Toyoda, grandson of the founder of the world's largest auto company. "I'm deeply sorry for any accident that Toyota drivers have experienced."

But what's most important to American drivers — and what lawmakers pressed Toyoda and a top aide to provide — was a better explanation for slow actions to deal with the defects and believable assurances the problems that led to sudden unintended accelerations will be fixed. Toyoda said those changes are being made nearly around the clock, but he repeated the company's insistence that there is no link to the cars' electronic systems.

Many drivers filing complaints with Toyota and the government say their acceleration problems had nothing to do with floor mat interference or sticky gas pedals — the culprits the company is pointing to. Outside experts have suggested electronic problems.

Toyota has recalled 8.5 million vehicles, more than 6 million of them in the United States, mostly to fix problems with floor mats trapping gas pedals or with pedals getting stuck. Toyoda said great strides were being taken by his company to put "safety first" and it was working hard to refit the millions of cars and trucks that have been recalled.

^ THE PEDALS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM WITH TOYOTA...THE PROBLEM IS THE COMPANY AND IT'S CONTINUED EFFORT TO HIDE THE TRUTH THAT THEY ARE KNOWINGLY BUILDING AND SELLING JUNK CARS & TRUCKS.

The company also said Wednesday it will offer free at-home pickup of vehicles covered by the national safety recall, pay for customers' out-of-pocket transportation costs and provide drivers free rental cars during repairs. The deal was initially announced as part of an agreement between Toyota and New York state.

Toyoda also said that new systems to allow brakes to override gas pedals were being put on new models.

"Notwithstanding that, accidents actually happen," he told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the second of three congressional panels examining Toyota's troubles.

Toyoda, 53, remained calm when some Democratic and Republican lawmakers scolded the company for the recalls and safety problems.

He stood firm on many points, including saying he was "absolutely confident" the causes of runaway acceleration were mechanical, and not a design flaw in the company's electronic throttle control system. Many safety experts and lawmakers have suggested that the electronics systems should not be ruled out.

Rep. Mica said it was an embarrassing day not only for Toyota but for U.S. safety regulators, whom a number of lawmakers said should have acted more quickly and forcefully.

Mica held up a copy of a July 2009 internal Toyota document boasting of a "win" for Toyota in striking a deal with the U.S. government for a more limited recall involving floor mats. The document said the agreement saved the company $100 million.

The internal presentation was addressed to Yoshimi Inaba, chief of Toyota Motor North America, who sat next to Toyoda at the witness table.

"It is inconsistent with the guiding principles of Toyota," Inaba told Mica.

Toyoda's testimony got off to an agreeable start, as he promised to tell the truth and gave an opening statement in clear, if heavily accented, English.

< THE TOYODA,  OR TOYOPET WAS THE ACTUAL NAME OF THE CARS AT FIRST, UNTIL "TOYODA" WAS CHANGED VIA SOME JAPANESE MAGIC TO TOYOTA.

HOW CAN YOU TRUST A MAN WHO STARTS OUT,... LYING ABOUT HIS OWN NAME !!!

"My name is on every car. You have my personal commitment that Toyota will work vigorously and unceasingly to restore the trust of our customers," he said.

Committee members praised him for voluntarily venturing onto a potential minefield. Under intensifying grilling, Toyoda chose to answer all questions in Japanese. He brought a translator with him.

Although he answered every question put to him, many of the answers repeated company talking points. He did not offer any new company concessions beyond a general promise to be more vigilant, open in communications and responsive to calls for change.

Toyoda testified for a little over three hours.

Later, Toyoda met with a more receptive audience: a group of U.S. Toyoto dealers who have been in town lobbying members of Congress. "Words cannot express my gratitude," he said in English. "We need to rethink everything about our operation to regain customer confidence."

Shares of Toyota traded on the New York Stock Exchange rose steadily Wednesday as Toyoda testified, closing up 4 percent.

At the hearing, Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., spoke of "injuries and the damages suffered by innocent Americans ... who like myself have grown up in an atmosphere that we had a great deal of faith in something that was stamped 'Made in Japan.'"

"It was of the highest reliability. You injured that thought process in the American public, and you will be called upon in our system to pay compensation for that," Kanjorski said.

And Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., told the Toyota chief, "It's one thing to say you're sorry. It's another when it seems as if time after time there are pronouncements that problems are being addressed and over and over again it seems like they're not being addressed."

He asked why Americans "should pay hard-earned money on a Toyota in hard economic times."

< THE START OF TROUBLE AS TOYOTA STARTED TO IMPORT CARS TO AMERICA IN THE 1960'S... AFTER SEEING THE SUCCESS OF THE VW BEETLE. THE CARS WERE KNOWN AS "SEWING MACHINES" AS THAT WAS & STILL IS TOYOTA'S MAIN BUSINESS...YES, MARTHA,....TOYOTA DOSE BUILD SEWING MACHINES !! CAR PRODUCTION STARTED BY DECREE OF THE EMPEROR OF JAPAN, WHO FUNDED "TOYODA" TO BUILD CARS & TRUCKS DURING THE WAR WITH THE CHINESE.

"I sincerely regret that some people actually encountered accidents in their vehicles," said Toyoda.

In one pointed exchange, Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Calif., asked Toyoda whether U.S. regulators should require automakers to report all defects throughout the globe. When Toyoda gave a lengthy response through his translator, promising to "minimize those troubles," Bilbray became flustered.

"In all fairness, I'd just like a yes or no," Bilbray said, pointing his finger at Toyoda. Toyoda quickly said through the translator that the company would "extend full cooperation." Bilbray shot back, "We'll take that as a yes."

Committee members did not spare federal safety regulators from their withering criticism.

Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., the committee chairman, said the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration failed to follow through aggressively on thousands of complaints dating back a decade about sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles.

NHTSA , which is part of the Transportation Department, "failed the taxpayers and Toyota failed their customers," Towns declared.

Towns asked Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who preceded Toyoda in the witness chair, a question on behalf all of Toyota owners and drivers: Are the cars safe to drive?

"We have listed every Toyota that's up for recall," LaHood said. "I want anybody who has one of those cars to take it to the dealer and make sure it gets fixed."

LaHood said the recalled vehicles posted on his department's Web site, http://www.dot.gov, "are not safe."

Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the leading Republican on the panel, waved a gas pedal before LaHood and complained that Toyota knew about problems of sticking gas pedals and improperly placed floor mats years ago and made some fixes on models sold in Japan but delayed addressing the problems on other cars, including some of its most popular models sold in the U.S., until just recently.

                                  

What Is Toyota Hiding Behind Its Black Box?

For almost a decade, the increasing sophistication and interconnectedness of the electronically-controlled devices and systems in passenger vehicles has offered the opportunity to collect and store ample data for post-crash accident investigation.

Since the late 1990’s, individuals have participated in DOT-sponsored workgroups with the aim of developing industry guidelines (e.g. IEEE & SAE) for and advising government rule-makers on EDR-related topics. Represented were the US and Canadian governments, EDR suppliers, universities, the insurance industry, and certain OEM’s, among them GM, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, VW, Honda and Toyota.

According to an August 2001 report from the workgroup, “The results of a NHTSA-sponsored engineering analysis show that EDR data can objectively report real-world crash data and therefore be a powerful investigative and research tool, by providing very useful information to crash reconstructionists and vehicle safety researchers. Due to significant limitations however, EDR data should always be used in conjunction with other data sources.”

The types of data that can be captured and stored are limited only by the available sensors, integration into a vehicle-communication protocol (i.e. CAN-BUS or Flex-Ray), software-design, computing power, and available memory. At the time of the NHTSA report (2001), GM’s EDRs were already capable of the following:

Capture: State of the driver’ belt, vehicle speed, engine RPM, “brake odoff,” and throttle position;

Transmit and Input: The driver seat belt switch signal is typically input into the SDM, while the remaining sensors are monitored by one or more other electronic modules that broadcast data according to a ”send on change” based design (e.g. a change in engine speed of more than 32 RPM, broadcasts the new RPM value on the serial bus).

Store, archive, update and recover: In airbag deployment or a near-deployment crashes, the last 5-seconds of data are stored in an EEPROM (recoverable with appropriate PC-based equipment.) This means, every second, the SDM takes the most recent sensor data values and stores them in a recirculating buffer (RAM), one storage location for each parameter for a total of 5-seconds. When the airbag sensing system “enables” on impact, buffer refreshing is suspended;

Certain 1999 models had this capability, and almost all GM vehicles were expected to add that capability over the next few years.

Compare where GM was in 1999, with the claims found by the L.A. Times on the Toyota website. Toyota’s EDR’s are capable of recording data including, among other things, brake pedal application and degree of application of the accelerator pedal.

On the side of reading data out of EDR’s, in 2000, the Robert Bosch Corporation developed their CDR (Crash Data Retrieval) unit. Many models by GM (1994), Ford (2001), Chrysler (2005) and Nissan (2007) have the capability for crash-event data to be stored in their proprietary EDR’s, and to be freely retrieved by licensed 3^rd parties via a Bosch CDR unit.

While the Bosch CDR units can be freely purchased and used, and training and support is widely available through Bosch, in North America, Toyota takes a totally opposite posture. Toyota appears to engage in practices intended to limit access to the data recorded by Toyota’s EDRs.

Contrast the situation surrounding the OEM’s above with Toyota’s own answers to questions from the L.A. Times (edited for brevity). Given Toyota’s apparent lack of confidence in the software or electronics in its prototype crash analysis tool, one can not help but wonder if this is really due to the tool, or the production systems it was designed to analyze:

“Toyota does not yet have a commercially available EDR readout tool and currently has only one prototype readout tool in the U.S. Toyota performs EDR readouts for law enforcement under certain circumstances. We are also occasionally ordered by various courts to perform EDR readouts. A readout for law enforcement is a community service that Toyota performs. Toyota does not have the capacity to perform readouts using its one prototype tool in all cases.”

“Toyota’s EDR is capable of recording only the previous several seconds of activity before and/or a fraction of a second after a crash or near-crash situation.”

“Given the fact that the readout tool is a prototype and has not been validated, it is Toyota’s policy not to use EDR data in its investigations. However, Toyota has used the readout tool under certain circumstances.”

“EDR data ownership varies state by state. The prototype software used by Toyota to perform EDR readouts is proprietary, as is the case with all auto manufacturers. Toyota does not contend that the EDR readout data is proprietary. When a data retrieval tool is commercially available, any data retrieved will then as now be subject to applicable state law.”

“Federal regulators require Toyota and all other OEMs w/EDR equipped vehicles to make a data retrieval tool commercially available by 9/1/12. Toyota will, of course, comply with this requirement.”

Given the mature nature of EDR technology and the degree to which its competitors have made their EDR data available for 3rd-party download; the limited circumstances (e.g. court order) under which Toyota makes its single “prototype” device available, the way in which Toyota characterizes the software within as “unvalidated” and unreliable, and Toyota’s persistence in these actions despite the obvious conflict of interest (as the sole party that can release EDR data), one has to wonder what Toyota is hiding behind their black box.

ITS THE PEDAL MAKERS FAULT....WELL, NO IT IS NOT !!!

What's more, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has conducted eight investigations into sudden-acceleration problems in Toyota vehicles over the last seven years, none of which identified a sticking pedal as a potential cause.

"The way the sudden-acceleration problems are occurring in reported incidents doesn't comport with how this sticky pedal is described," said Sean Kane, president of Safety Research & Strategies, a Rehoboth, Mass., auto safety consulting firm. "We know this recall is a red herring."

Sudden-acceleration events in Toyota and Lexus vehicles have been blamed for at least 19 fatalities and 815 vehicle crashes since 1999.

Toyota last fall blamed the episodes on floor mats that entrapped the gas pedals, leading to a massive recall. Then last week Toyota said sticking gas pedals were also causing sudden acceleration by not springing back into idle position, triggering another recall.

On Tuesday, the automaker stopped sales and production of eight models until it could remedy the problem.

Independent auto safety experts have been skeptical of Toyota's explanations, saying floor mats and sticky gas pedals can't fully explain the large number of complaints that have been mounting for the last decade, covering some of the most popular models in the company's lineup, including the Camry.

That argument was given more weight Friday when the manufacturer of the suspect pedals insisted its products had been unfairly blamed.

CTS Corp. of Elkhart, Ind., said in a statement that it had "deep concern that there is widespread confusion and incorrect information" about its products linked to the sudden-acceleration issue.

"The problem of sudden unintended acceleration has been reported to have existed in some Lexus vehicles and Toyota vehicles going back to 1999, when CTS did not even make this product for any customer," the company said.

TOYOTA  backhandedly singled out a U.S. Partsmaker — CTS Corp., of Elkhart, Ind. — as the supplier of defective pedals while exonerating a Japanese company, Denso, that makes the same part. But CTS CEO Vinod M. Khilnani wasn't about to take the fall. He says his company met Toyota's engineering specifications and notes that the recalls tied to unintended acceleration extend to vehicles built as long ago as 2002. "CTS didn't become a Toyota supplier until 2005," he says.

There was more to come. In early February, Toyota managed to back over any remaining political goodwill it had when it voluntarily recalled more than 400,000 Prius and other hybrid cars — this time, to update software in the antilock brake system that could cause a glitch if the car traveled over a bumpy surface. The Lexus is Toyota's top-selling luxury model — bad enough — but the Prius is its darling, a car that demonstrated the company's ability to solve technical issues that kept other automakers from fielding gas-electric hybrids, at the same time clinching Toyota's green cred. Only last month at the Detroit Auto Show, executives described the Prius as the cornerstone of Toyota's future growth. Toyota planned to sell a million hybrids a year globally, most of them in North America.

As Toyota dithered, it lost hold of the wheel. Lawyers and politicians took charge. In Washington, Toyota executives are poised to replace bankers as populist targets before a congressional hearing. "Toyota drivers have gone from being customers of the company to being wards of the government," says Jim Cain, senior vice president of Quell Group, a marketing-communications firm in Detroit, and a former Ford media-relations executive. "It's absolutely the worst possible position to be in." Tort lawyers around the U.S. have filed class actions. SRS says it has identified 2,262 instances of unintended acceleration in Toyotas leading to at least 819 crashes and 26 deaths since 1999.

Jean Bookout couldn't control her revving car, even after she pulled the emergency brake. It slammed into an embankment beside an Oklahoma interstate, killing her best friend.

Bulent Ezal was about to park his car for lunch when it was propelled over a curb, plowed through two decorative fences and plunged over a 70-foot cliff beside the Pacific Ocean, killing his wife.

Guadalupe Alberto, on the way to the family convenience store, found herself racing at speeds of as much as 75 mph before she slammed her car into a tree. A witness said she appeared terrified as she flew by.

As the first congressional hearings on Toyota get underway Tuesday, one key question will be whether the automaker has fully diagnosed the causes of its runaway cars.

The company says it has discovered the source of the problem in sticky pedals and interfering floor mats, and is fixing them in the millions of cars it has recalled.

But in each of those three fatal episodes, the car involved was a 2005 Toyota Camry, a model that the company has indicated is free of the acceleration defects: It has not been recalled for either the sticky pedal or the floor mat interference.

"This raises a huge red flag," said Clarence Ditlow, director of the Center for Auto Safety.

                                   

Suspicions
He and other safety advocates have their own suspicions, aroused by a history of glitchy behavior in the electronics that control Toyota's engines.

"Many unintended accelerations do not appear to be explained by floor mats and sticky pedals," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), who is holding the Tuesday hearing on the recalls. "One of the key questions we will ask at the hearing is whether electronic defects could be responsible."

Toyota officials declined to comment on the cases because they are in litigation.

"We never want to see any injuries or fatalities in our vehicles regardless of the circumstances," spokesman Ed Lewis said, "and nothing is more important to us than the safety and reliability of the vehicles our customers drive."

Electronic throttle systems were introduced in Camrys in 2002, replacing the old mechanical connection between the accelerator pedal and the engine, and it is the operation of these sensors and other electronics that has been the focus of many industry watchdogs.

Last year, a study by Randy Whitfield, a Maryland researcher, showed that the portion of complaints filed with federal regulators against Toyotas involving "speed control" as much as tripled after the company installed electronic throttles.

Whitfield said his company, Quality Control Systems, which analyzes auto safety data, initiated the research on its own. It was first posted online in October 2008. A companion piece, published this month, was paid for by trial attorneys and victims' families.

Warning signs missed?
The attorneys, victims' families and their consultants say several clues suggest that engine electronics could cause Toyotas to malfunction.

For example, in 2002, the company issued a service bulletin to dealers warning that some Camrys "exhibit a surging" at speeds between 38 and 42 mph.

It called for revisions in the calibration of the "engine control module," the electronics that run the engine.

About the same time, the Camry owner's manual offered a warning that the installation of a mobile two-way radio system "could affect electronic systems" in the car, including the electronic throttle system.

And then in 2007, an investigation by federal regulators found that magnetic interference could cause an increase in engine speed in a Toyota Lexus ES 350.

In response to the suspicions, Toyota has said it has studied its electronics and found no defects.

"If you are looking for a needle in a haystack and you don't find it, it doesn't mean it wasn't there," said Antony Anderson, an electrical engineer who has specialized in electrical failure investigations.

Federal safety regulators, meanwhile, have repeatedly opted not to pursue deeper investigations.

When officials with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced recently that they would review the potential electronics problems, they made clear their skepticism.

"This is not a defect investigation, because the agency has no reason at this point to believe there are safety defects in these systems," the NHTSA said in a written announcement.

                                                

Drivers at fault?
Since Toyota hasn't acknowledged any sudden acceleration defects in the '05 Camry, or in the '06 Camry, which is involved in another fatality, what caused the acceleration may remain a mystery.

In court, manufacturers often blame alleged acceleration problems on the driver, attributing the acceleration to "pedal misapplication," or the driver accidentally hitting the accelerator instead of the brake.

In a 1989 report, the NHTSA asserted that drivers over 60 were far more likely than younger drivers to be involved in such an incident, suggesting that deteriorating reflexes are a contributing factor, too.

In each of the three fatal cases involving '05 Camrys, the driver was older than 70.

But the prolonged duration of the three fatal rides, as well as witness accounts, may make it more difficult to blame driver confusion.

Crashes caused by "pedal misapplication" often unfold in just moments -- before the driver has time to realize the mistake and avert trouble.

But the 2005 Camry cases lasted more than a moment.

'Terrified'
In the Oklahoma case in September 2007, for example, the police report notes that one of the Camry's rear tires left a skid mark of 150 feet, apparently as Bookout, then 76, applied the emergency brake. Before dying, her passenger told first responders that the car had sped out of control, said Graham Esdale, the attorney representing plaintiffs in the case.

Ezal, then 73, was braking as he entered the parking lot and had enough time to run over a curb and plow through two decorative fences before the Camry carrying the retired engineer and his wife went off the cliff.

In the Michigan case, Alberto, 77, was driving an estimated 75 mph on a street with a 25 mph speed limit on the way to work at her family's store.

"She had both hands on the steering wheel and her eyes were wide open like she was scared or, you know, terrified," a witness, Dante Hairston said in a sworn statement.

As for the question of the driver's age, statistics from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety show that drivers between 70 and 75 years of age experience police-reported accidents at a slightly higher rate than their middle-aged peers on a per-mile basis. But they are roughly the same as drivers between 25 and 30 years old.

"Mrs. Alberto's accident cannot be explained in terms of what Toyota has offered so far with its claims of driver pedal misapplication, floor mats or sticky pedals," said the family's attorney, Edgar F. Heiskell. "The electronic throttle control took over the throttle."

                              

Documents: Toyota boasted saving $100M on recall

Toyota, in an internal presentation in July 2009 at its Washington office, said it saved $100 million or more by negotiating an "equipment recall" of floor mats involving 55,000 Toyota Camry and Lexus ES350 vehicles in September 2007.

The savings are listed under the title, "Wins for Toyota — Safety Group." The document cites millions of dollars in other savings by delaying safety regulations, avoiding defect investigations and slowing down other industry requirements.

The documents could set off alarms in Congress over whether Toyota put profits ahead of customer safety and pushed regulators to narrow the scope of recalls. Two House committees are holding hearings this week on the Japanese automaker's recall of 8.5 million vehicles in recent months to deal with safety problems involving gas pedals, floor mats and brakes.

The world's largest automaker has been criticized for responding too slowly to complaints of sudden acceleration in its vehicles, threatening to undermine its reputation for quality and safety.

The documents were turned over to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and obtained by The Associated Press on Sunday. The presentation was first reported by The Detroit News.

Toyota said in a statement: "Our first priority is the safety of our customers and to conclude otherwise on the basis of one internal presentation is wrong. Our values have always been to put the customer first and ensure the highest levels of safety and quality."

Kurt Bardella, a spokesman for Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the top Republican on the Oversight Committee, said the documents raise questions on "whether Toyota was lobbying for less rigid actions from regulators to protect their bottom line."

Transportation Department spokeswoman Olivia Alair called the document "very telling. And that's why Secretary (Ray) LaHood has been saying we're going to hold Toyota's feet to the fire and make sure they do what's necessary to make their cars safe for the driving public."

The new documents show the financial benefit of delay. In the presentation, Toyota said a phase-in to new safety regulations for side air bags saved the company $124 million and 50,000 man hours. Delaying a rule for tougher door locks saved $11 million.

On defect regulations, the document boasts that Toyota "avoided investigation" on rusting Tacoma pickup trucks. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigated the case in 2008 but closed it without finding a safety defect. Toyota agreed to buy back certain rusty pickups, inspect other and extend warranties.

The document lists seven "Wins for Toyota & Industry," including "favorable recall outcomes," "secured safety rulemaking favorable to Toyota" and "vehicles not in climate legislation." Another page lists "key safety issues," including "Sudden acceleration on ES/Camry, Tacoma, LS etc."

In one passage, the document says Toyota "negotiated 'equipment' recall on Camry/ES re SA; saved $100M+, w/ no defect found."

NHTSA had launched an investigation in March 2007 over allegations that floor mats were interfering with accelerator pedals. Toyota told the government a month later that there was "no possibility of the pedal interference with the all-weather floor mat if it's placed properly and secured."

By that August, the government had connected the problem to a dozen deaths and a survey of 600 Lexus owners discovered 10 percent reported sudden or unexpected acceleration. But the recall in September 2007 was limited to 55,000 Camry and ES350 vehicles to replace the floor mats.

The 10-page internal presentation was dated July 6, 2009, less than two months before a high-speed crash near San Diego killed a California highway patrol officer and his family and reignited concerns over sudden acceleration in Toyotas.

In October 2009, Toyota issued its largest-ever U.S. recall, involving about 4 million vehicles, over concerns of pedals getting stuck in floor mats.

The presentation lists Yoshi Inaba, Toyota's chief executive in North America, on its cover. Inaba is scheduled to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday, along with Toyota president Akio Toyoda and Jim Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales USA. The committee is also expected to hear from LaHood, NHTSA Administrator David Strickland and safety advocates.

The Oversight Committee is holding a hearing Tuesday with Lentz, LaHood and Strickland. A Senate committee is planning a March 2 hearing.

Toyota has said it will create an outside review of company operations, do a better job of responding to customer complaints and improve communication with federal officials.

Separately, the government said Sunday it was already investigating reports of sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles when the nation's largest auto insurer shared complaints about the issue.

The Transportation Department released documents showing that in December 2003 it began investigating 39 complaints of sudden acceleration involving 2002-03 Toyota Camry sedans. That was about three months before State Farm shared with NHTSA complaints of sudden acceleration in 2003-04 Lexus ES300s and 2002-04 Camrys.

The document released by LaHood said the department had received allegations of 26 crashes and 4 injuries involving drivers complaining of their vehicles surging when backing up, pulling in and out of parking spaces and shifting gears.

Reports of deaths in the U.S. connected to sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles have surged in recent weeks, with the toll of deaths allegedly attributed to the problem reaching 34 since 2000, according to new consumer data gathered by the U.S. government.

The automaker says it hurriedly announced last Thursday a planned recall of 2.3 million Toyotas, back to 2005 models, because the defect trend had picked up. "The quickness that this all came together is one reason why I don't have numbers" of complaints, the automaker's U.S. safety spokesman, John Hanson, says. "And why we don't have a fix."

The recall includes an unspecified number of 2009-10 Pontiac Vibes, designed and built by Toyota for General Motors' now- discontinued Pontiac brand. Vibe is similar to the Toyota Matrix that's part of the recall.

Toyota did not identify Vibe in its announcement of the recall. GM made no announcement, but confirmed Vibe is included.

GM spokesman Alan Adler says: "We do not typically do pre-recall announcements. We tend to wait until there is something that can be done," before notifying owners.

Hanson has said it could be weeks before Toyota determines a remedy and gets it approved by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Toyota says it has no direct reports of injuries or deaths . ( ? !!!!!)  But the day Toyota announced the recall, ABC News broadcast a report, prepared before the recall announcement, linking the problem to four deaths (http://abcnews.go.com/blotter).

The car company says that the latest sticking-throttle recall is separate from one it announced in November. That one involved 4.3 million Toyota and Lexus models. Their gas pedals might get caught under floor mats and send the cars out of control.

That problem is linked to the death of off-duty California Highway Patrolman Mark Saylor and three family members Aug. 28.

"I think it's questionable" whether the two recalls are separate, says Jesse Toprak, vice president of industry trends for TrueCar.com, an auto-pricing and industry-tracking site.

Toyota says 1.7 million vehicles are affected by both recalls. Toprak notes that Toyota first identified the previous recall as a floor mat issue, then said the accelerator pedals themselves were partly at fault. Now, most vehicles in the sticking-throttle recall announced Thursday also are involved in the November recall.

"Their biggest error was not to do a deep dive into the issue last year," Toprak says.

Toyota says the potentially faulty pedals came from a CTS facility in Streetsville, Ontario. CTS has not returned calls asking for comment.

Toyota says drivers whose throttles stick open should shift into neutral, pull off the road and call a dealer. Dealers have been told to help on a "case-by-case basis," until Toyota can fix the problem.

Adler says GM dealers would do so, too. He says that no Vibe owners have reported the problem. Adler says the recall repairs will be made by GM's Buick and GMC dealers.

Toyota won't say how much leeway dealers have — whether, for example, they can install new pedal assemblies, or provide long-term loaner cars until there is a recall remedy.

Toyota says the problem appears to be due to premature wear of some mechanical parts in the CTS throttle assemblies. Hanson says that means new vehicles should be risk-free, at least long enough for Toyota to come up with a fix.

Throttle-pedal assemblies from Toyota's other supplier, Denso, are not all interchangeable, eliminating that as a quick-fix solution, Toyota says.

CTS also supplies throttle assemblies to Honda, Nissan and Mitsubishi. Those companies say their designs are different and pose no risk of sticking open.

Hanson says the first symptom of the latest throttle problem is when the gas pedal feels rough, instead of smooth, when the driver presses down. The next stage: The throttle pedal doesn't return promptly when the driver lets off. Finally, the throttle sticks open even after the driver's foot is removed.

Hanson says drivers should contact dealers if they experience the first step and not wait for the gas pedal to begin working sluggishly. "We don't want that vehicle on the road, and we want to keep that owner mobile. We'll do whatever we can on a case-by-case basis," Hanson says.

Toyota continues selling models involved in the recall, expecting that they work fine because they are new and the throttles don't seem to begin sticking until the vehicle ages, Hanson says.

                                           

SO,.....IF YOU OWN A TOYOTA....GET RID OF IT,...NOW !! DON'T TRY TO SELL IT AS ONLY AN IDIOT WOULD BUY A TOYOTA TODAY. JUST TAKE IT TO A SHOPPING MALL PARKING LOT AND HAVE YOUR FRIEND WITH THE 4x4 PICKUP RUN OVER IT A FEW TIMES, THEN CALL YOUR INSURANCE COMPANY AND TELL THEM YOUR CAR GOT TOTALED WHILE YOU WERE SHOPPING !!...

       ....& THEN GO BUY A CHEVY !

^ 2011 CHEVROLET CRUZE - ALREADY A BEST SELLING CAR WORLDWIDE !!

Congress: Mother of Lexus crash victims to testify at Toyota hearing
2/22/10

This Wednesday, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will hold a hearing on Toyota's recent recall woes entitled "Toyota Gas Pedals: Is the Public at Risk?" The committee released a full witness list today, which includes a number of people we were expecting to testify like Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, National Highway Traffic Safety Administrator David Strickland, President and CEO of Toyota Motor North America Yoshimi Inaba and his boss, the President and CEO of Toyota Motor Corporation, Akio Toyoda.

Along with representatives from a couple of consumer safety groups, there's one witness on the list who took us by surprise: Mrs. Fe Lastrella, a relative of four family members who perished late last August when off-duty California Highway Patrol officer Mark Saylor lost control of a loaner Lexus ES350 when it experienced sudden unintended acceleration. Mrs. Lastrella is the mother of Saylor's wife, Cleofe, and brother-in-law, Chris Lastrella, who were both killed in the accident. Lastrella's 13-year-old granddaughter Mahala also died in the accident.

The fatal crash was arguably the catalyst for Toyota's recent fall from grace, as it led to the first recall last October of 3.8 million vehicles for defective floor mats that could entrap accelerator pedals on certain models. That recall has since been expanded to 4.9 million vehicles and was followed by another recall in late January of 2.3 million Toyota vehicles with pedals that could also experience unintended acceleration in certain situations.

What effect will Mrs. Lastrella's testimony on Wednesday have on the hearing's outcome? The presence of a family member, a mother no less, who has been so devastatingly impacted by an accident involving a Toyota, will serve to put a human face on the question of whether or not the tragedy could have been prevented – and equally important, whether Toyota, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration – or both – are to blame.


link:
http://www.autoblog....toyota-hearing/

READ THE FULL STORY BELOW ...THIS IS REALLY HOW TOYOTA DEALS WITH THE JUNK THEY SELL YOU :

(CBS)  By CBS News Investigative Unit Contributor Myron Levin

Automaker Toyota has been charged in a class action suit with illegally hiding evidence from plaintiffs in cases stemming from highway deaths and injuries across the U.S.

The suit filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles echoes the explosive claims of former Toyota attorney Dimitrios

As first reported Saturday by CBSNews.com, Biller charged that Toyota executives and lawyers thwarted his efforts to preserve and produce electronically stored data , such as e-mails, as part of a "ruthless conspiracy'' to withhold relevant evidence in vehicle rollover cases.

                          
Toyota spokesperson Zoe Zeigler declined comment on the class action complaint, saying company lawyers have not yet had a chance to review it.

The suit seeks to represent all plaintiffs who lost or settled cases in which Toyota allegedly concealed evidence. It was filed late Friday by lawyers for Bella Basco and Crystal Ennis, both of whom suffered catastrophic injuries in rollover wrecks when vehicle roofs collapsed.

Basco, 36, of Saskatchewan, Canada, sued Toyota in 2005 after a crash of a Toyota Corolla left her a quadriplegic. In August, 2007, a jury in Los Angeles absolved Toyota on a 9-3 vote, finding that the design of the roof structure was not a substantial factor in her injuries.

Ennis, 24, of San Bernardino County in California, sued Toyota in 2003 after becoming quadriplegic in a rollover of a Toyota Camry. Her case was settled on confidential terms in September, 2007.

Triggered by Biller's sensational allegations, the class action is the first salvo in what will likely be a wider campaign to reopen cases previously won or settled by Toyota. Richard McCune of McCuneWright, LLP, in Redlands, CA., which represented Basco and Ennis and filed the class action, acknowledged that he had no independent confirmation of Biller's charges.

But in the Basco and Ennis cases, there was key information "that a company like Toyota should have had, and which they claimed they did not have, such as fundamental test reports,'' he said. If Biller is correct, significant evidence was withheld, and everyone else who had cases in the same time period "was in the same boat that we are," McCune said.

                      

Biller, a managing counsel for Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc., in Torrance, Calif., from 2003 to 2007, claimed in his lawsuit that he repeatedly complained to supervisors that the company was illegally withholding evidence. He said the conflicts caused him to suffer a mental breakdown and leave the company in September, 2007, with a $3.7 million severance agreement.

Biller, 46, said that when he learned of the company's failure to produce test data from an engineering subsidiary, he attempted to collect and preserve the information. Nonetheless, the engineering unit "was allowed to destroy relevant information and documents that should have been produced in, approximately, over 300 rollover accidents involving roof crush issues.'' The suit also claims that Toyota regularly withheld records on its internal standard for roof strength, and allowed witnesses to testify that the standard didn't exist.

In a statement issued Friday on the Biller case, P. Biller, who in a separate racketeering case accused his former employer of concealing and destroying evidence that should have been provided to plaintiffs. Toyota called his accusations "inaccurate and misleading.'' Company lawyers have not filed an answer to his lawsuit, but have brought a motion to seal the complaint, claiming it is "rife with privileged and confidential information'' that Biller, as a former Toyota lawyer, has no right to divulge.

Like the Biller complaint, the class action names Toyota Motor Corp. of Japan, Toyota Motor Sales, and five current or former executives and lawyers with Motor Sales. It seeks certification of two separate classes -- one of Californians and the other of plaintiffs from other states who lost or settled cases with Toyota.

USE THE LINK BELOW TO FILE YOUR OPINION WITH CBS NEWS :

'

Lexus Crash: An Avoidable Tragedy

Toyota's Recall Highlights A Problem That Could Have Been Fixed

Posted: Dec, 10 2009

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The Saylor Family: Cleofe Saylor, Mahala Saylor and Mark Saylor in an undated photograph (Facebook).

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Recently, Toyota Motor America recalled over 4 million of its Toyota brand and Lexus brand vehicles to stem a problem that's hung over the automaker's head for months.

Back in August, a family of four crashed in a Lexus ES350 after the driver noticed he couldn't get the car to slow down. With a floor mat stuck underneath the accelerator pedal, the car traveled out of control, through busy intersections under its own uncontrollable power.

Traveling at a rate of over 100 MPH, the car finally came to a stop after it bounded through an intersection at a dead-end road, swiped another car, crashed through a fence, jumped over a dirt berm and landed into a riverbed below. All four people died from the injuries sustained in the crash and the ensuing fire. The driver of the other vehicle escaped with minor injuries.

Vehicles Involved in Toyota's Gas Pedal Recall

2007 - 2010 Toyota Camry

2005 - 2010 Toyota Avalon

2004 - 2009 Toyota Prius

2005 - 2010 Toyota Tacoma

2007 - 2010 Toyota Tundra

2007 - 2010 Lexus ES350

2006 - 2010 Lexus IS250

2006 - 2010 Lexus IS350

Toyota's advice for owners of the above vehicles: Until the company sends you a letter asking you to come into the dealership, it is asking owners of specific Toyota and Lexus models to take out any removable driver’s floor mat and NOT replace it with any other floor mat.

The details of Toyota's safety advisory and recall are now known (view our story on the recall), with hopefully no further accidents. Toyota says the full scope of the recall, which includes the shaving of accelerator pedals and the installation of a brake override system in some models, could take a few months.

But, absent in the dry discussion of the recall are two critical things: the loss of a young family and the tragic fact that the entire thing could have been avoided.

On Their Way To Soccer Practice

Mark Saylor lived the kind of life most kids dream about. After a childhood playing sports and trading baseball cards, he grew up to join the Air Force, where he traveled the world, including a stint of two years in Okinawa, Japan. Eventually he moved to his final Air Force commission in Sacramento, achieving the rank of Sergeant E4. He was well regarded amongst his friends and fellow soldiers.

Saylor's life of service didn't stop with the Air Force, however. He joined the California Highway Patrol after the Air Force, serving for 20 years.

In California as a CHP, Saylor would go on to meet his wife to-be, Cleofe. Cleofe Lastrella, born in the Philippines but raised in the Midway Islands and San Francisco, was a smart and pretty young woman with a degree in biochemistry from UC Davis. In 1995, the two wed in Vallejo, California.

One year later they gave birth to their only daughter, Mahala, who took to her father's love of sports. She was an avid soccer player and loved playing with her friends. After graduating from St. John's Middle School earlier in the year, she was due to start high school in the fall.

The morning of August 28, 2009 started like any other for the Saylor family, save for the fact that it was a Friday. Officer Saylor started early like he normally did -- 5:30 a.m. -- with a brief break in the morning to take his car for service at Bob Baker Toyota/Lexus. He brought in his 2006 Lexus IS250 for a problem with the CD player and was given a loaner vehicle, a 2009 Lexus ES350. He left the dealership at 9:35 in the morning, returned to work at the California Highway Patrol Special Duties School and finished his shift at 2:00 p.m. It being Friday, he was looking forward to spending time with his family.

That afternoon Saylor returned home to the family's residence in Chula Vista, where he picked up his wife, daughter and brother-in-law (Cleofe's brother, Chris Lastrella). Officer John Concepcion, Saylor's close friend at the CHP, said the family usually spent Friday evenings at Mahala's soccer practice. They were on their way to such a practice on Friday afternoon when their Lexus experienced problems.

Chris Lastrella, riding in the back seat next to Mahala, called 911.

"The accelerator is stuck," he said to the operator. "We're approaching an intersection..."

Santee, California's intersection of SR 125 and Mission Gorge Road is one of the busiest intersections in San Diego County. The Saylors and Lastrella died only moments later.

An Avoidable Tragedy

Any tragedy of this sort leaves plenty of tough, unanswered questions. Chief among them is: why couldn't Mark Saylor get his car stopped? With the sort of rigorous training a California Highway Patrol officer goes through, there's little doubt that Saylor tried every possible option in his attempt to slow the car and save his family.

Toyota called the issue one of "pedal entrapment," brought about by the car's floor mat sticking under the pedal. The vehicle, on loan from Bob Baker Toyota/Lexus, actually had the wrong floor mat installed. It was an all-weather floor mat from a Lexus SUV, which -- given the angle of the ES350's floor and its distance to the bottom of the accelerator pedal -- caused the jamming. Saylor and his family were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was a complete and utter tragedy.

Was it Toyota's fault? Was it the dealership's fault? It's tough to say, but we can be certain it wasn't Mark Saylor's fault.

When the news broke that the vehicle had the wrong floor mats in it, our hearts sank. Nobody double-checked it. Nobody from the dealership considered what might occur. But, how could they see the future, right? In a world of a thousand possibilities, it would be difficult for them to expect acceleration problems with any of their vehicles, let alone the Lexus they loaned Mark Saylor.

View PDF: San Diego County Sheriff's Report

We believed that until something we learned this week.

When the San Diego County Sheriff's Department Report No. 09056454.1 became public information last week, we learned that the very same car that Mark Saylor drove on August 28 had been reported as having unintended acceleration problems.

Earlier in the week the Saylor family died, Frank Bernard and his wife picked up the very same loaner vehicle -- a white Lexus ES350 with California dealer plate 6DRT323. In a police report, Bernard told the San Diego Sheriffs that that as he was merging onto a freeway, he saw a truck nearby and accelerated briskly to get in front of it. Once in front of the truck, he let his foot off the accelerator. The vehicle "kept accelerating on its own, to about 80-85 MPH."

Bernard said he stepped on the brakes and tried to lift up on the accelerator with his right foot. He got over to the shoulder, was able to slow the car to 50-60 MPH, but was unable to stop the car's ignition (the Lexus has a push-button start system that requires a three-second hold to turn off the car). Trying everything he could, he eventually placed the car into neutral. The engine "made a very loud, whining, racing sound" but the car stopped.

He was safe.

Bernard noticed the floor mat had become stuck under the accelerator pedal. After he cleared the mat, he drove normally, although likely a little shaken.

When Bernard returned the vehicle to Bob Baker Toyota/Lexus on the evening of August 25, he reported the problems to the receptionist.

"I think the mat caused it," he told the receptionist upon handing her the keys. "You need to tell someone."

Gallery: Avoid Floor Mat
Problems Using These Tips

The message never got to the right person.

Three days later, Mark Saylor picked up the same Lexus ES350 with the same all-weather floor mat installed. Hours later, he and his family were dead.

A Problem To Be Fixed

Consumer Reports recently uncovered NHTSA's log books from 2008 that showed Toyota and Lexus vehicles accounted for over 40% of the complaints about uncontrolled acceleration in 2008 models. That's a significant percentage, especially considering that Toyota doesn't sell 40% of the cars on the market (it sells about 15% of all cars).

When Toyota's President, Akio Toyoda, recently went on record to say, "Toyota has become too big and distant from its customers," we knew the tragedy had hit home at the mother company.

"We are grasping for salvation," Toyoda said.

It's the cold, hard truth of the safety business that it usually takes a tragedy to jumpstart a widespread innovation that eventually saves lives.

It's heartbreaking that Mark Saylor and his family became that tragedy, especially when it's now clear they didn't have to suffer such a fate.

Toyota Fixing Deadly Killer Floor Mats With... Zip Ties!

Toyota's told dealers to attach recalled floor mats to seat frames on the driver's side of affected vehicles with self-locking zip ties to prevent them from snagging on gas pedals, causing unintended acceleration and then, fiery death. Yes, zip ties.

Toyota spokesman Brian Lyons told Automotive News: "We have reviewed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration what we're calling a semipermanent floor mat installation process, and we're providing these instructions to our dealers."

Lyons says the mats are to be secured to the driver's seat frame with "nylon self-locking wire ties," described as plastic straps that loop back into themselves and lock when pulled tight. In other words "zip ties."

Dealers also are to attach a label to the wire tie warning dealers and customers to ensure that the mat is secured with restraining straps and not to stack one mat over another.

Although we always knew either duct tape or zip ties would save us all from fiery death, but we'd love to see some proof in the way of the "mat installation process" from a Toyota dealership. Anyone out there have the instructions or can find them for us? Similarly, anyone have pictures of the "semipermanent" solution in action?

^ WOULD YOU REALLY BUY ANYTHING FROM THESE GUYS, ... LIKE A CAR YOU TRUST YOUR FAMILY IN ???

Toyota Camry Hybrid Engineer Worked To Death

The death of a Japanese Toyota engineer in January 2006 has now been attributed to working too many hours according to an official ruling this past month. The 45-year-old man, lead engineer on the Toyota Camry Hybrid, was reportedly working an average of 80 hours overtime per month during the several months before his death from ischemic heart disease. The official ruling allows his family to collect benefits from his work insurance, and Toyota is saying they will work to improve monitoring of the health of their workers. Let's hope they mean it, because this occurence, known as "karoshi," has steadily increased since the Health Ministry first recognized the phenomenon in 1987.

It's especially tough to see someone work themselves to death in a white-collar job as opposed to going out doing what they love. We're not saying engineers don't enjoy what they do, but it's a shame to see a life wasted creating a boring mid-size sedan that gets slightly better fuel economy. We imagine that somewhere, Eric Stromer is laying a single rose on his Camry Hybrid.   -  [Yahoo News]

Toyota CEO Says Brand is "Grasping for Salvation"; Offers Apologies For Recall

October 2 2009 11:08 AM by Nate Martinez

Executives have mentioned that much of the company's financial turmoil still has to do with a weak U.S. economy, as well as a poor dollar-to-yen exchange rate. At one point earlier this year, analysts expected sales of 10 million units for the 2009 calendar year, but have now revised the estimate down to 7.34 million. Last year, the company sold 8.97 million units worldwide.

Given a stable exchange rate of $1 to 92 yen, a loss of $8.4 billion is said to occur for the financial year ending next March.

"When you get to this level, it makes it difficult to return to profit on sales growth alone," Akio said to reporters.

Toyoda also offered his apologies to those who have been affected by the recent Toyota/Lexus mass recall. Four people were said to be killed as a result of driver side floor mats sticking to the accelerator pedal.

“We would like to pay our deepest condolences for the loss of four precious lives,” Toyoda announced. “Customers who chose Toyota and Lexus cars because those brands are safe and secure are now beset with anxiety. I regret and apologize for this development."

Source: Reuters, Automotive News (Subscription required)




TOYOTA "SKUNKS OUT" ON RESPONSIBILITY FOR DEATHS CAUSED BY THEIR CARS, IT IS THE OWNER WHO CAUSED THE DEFECT THE COMPANY IMPLIES:


THE CURRENT RECALL — the largest U.S. recall for Toyota — was prompted by a high-speed crash in August involving a 2009 Lexus ES350 in which four people were killed. Occupants in the vehicle made a frantic 911 call, saying the accelerator was stuck and they couldn't stop the vehicle.

Toyota said it began mailing owners of the recalled vehicles letters about the possible problem with the mats. The recall includes the Toyota Camry for the model year 2007-2010, Toyota Avalon (2005-2010), Toyota Prius (2004-2009), Toyota Tacoma (2005-2010), Toyota Tundra (2007-2010), Lexus ES350 (2007-2010) and Lexus IS250/IS350 (2006-2010).

Toyota said there is no evidence that unintended acceleration could be caused by any defects other than an improperly installed or incorrect floor mat. It said the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has reviewed allegations of unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles six times, clearing the automaker each time.

"The question of unintended acceleration involving Toyota and Lexus vehicles has been repeatedly and thoroughly investigated by NHTSA, without any finding of defect other than the risk from an unsecured or incompatible driver's floor mat," said Bob Daly, senior vice president for Toyota Motor Sales USA, in a statement.  
In yet another example of Toyota Typical Two Faced BS, the company which is bleeding red ink worldwide now found a way to avoid taking the FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY for the DEATHS of Camry & Lexus Owners, who Must be Total Idiots if they cannot keep the floor mats connected to the floor, RIGHT ?......well yes they ARE Idiots for buying the cars in the first place, but the "attachment system" is completely "foreign" to the way most all other American Auto Company Floor Mats are attached... SO ONCE AGAIN TOYOTA PROVES THEY ARE DEAD WRONG.

THE TOYOTA RECOMMENDED "FIX " TO THE FLOOR MAT IS A "ZIP TIE" ATTACHED TO THE SEAT & FLOOR MAT !!!



^ UH,.....GEE WHIZ MISSER TOYODA....WE SEEM TO STILL REMEMBER ALL THOSE "STICKING ACCELERATOR" CRASHES IN NASCAR !!!

APPARENTLY TOYOTA THINKS ALL AMERICANS ARE DEAF, DUMB & BLIND.
OH, BUT PLEASE READ ON....AS THE PLOT "THICKENS" WITH EVEN MORE AMAZING TRUE DISASTER STORIES OF THE REAL TOYOTA HERE BELOW....:
 

TOKYO (AP) -- Toyota is recalling 1.3 million vehicles worldwide due to a seat belt defect. The recall includes more than 130,000 Yaris models sold in the U.S. Toyota Motor Sales USA says it is working with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to recall 134,900 model-year 2006 and 2007 Yaris subcompact cars.
The automaker says in severe front-end collisions,....
The seat belt is at risk of causing a foam pad in the vehicle to ignite, burning the car & Driver !

 
                         ^ The infamous "666" logo of Toyota
Toyota "ethics" Destroys The Company Value :

You can taste the delight mainstream media are having in reporting on the woes of their erstwhile automotive darling, Toyota. The automaker recalls 3.8 million vehicles for their floor mats. Owners complain their early model Tundras are rusting away like Chevy Vegas. Toyota posts its first quarterly loss since 1950. Or 1938, depending on which automotive historian you believe. And Akio Toyoda, company president and scion, is quoted saying the World's Number One Automaker is "grasping for salvation."

Toyota remains second to GM in U.S. sales, but it suffers the perception of being Number One everywhere. The quest for first place prompted Toyota to spend millions of U.S. dollars on the latest Tundra full-size pickup, a truck that will struggle to maintain six-digit sales here, just like the last Tundra.

Being number-one isn't necessarily a good thing, though. Toyota execs admitted as much a couple years ago as the company prepared to pass GM globally. Much of the public sees the largest manufacturer of anything as being a huge, impersonal entity concerned only about boosting profits and cutting costs (employees). A good portion of the public sees manufacturers of cars and trucks as being purveyors of gas guzzling, polluting deathtraps, no matter how many hybrids they sell.

Toyota is Number One with a bullet. It's a huge target, waiting to be pulled down by some upstart like Hyundai. That upstart then will face a challenge from another upstart. The next lead change won't take 50 years.

So far, Toyota has handled its ultimate position completely lacking grace, complaining of the same awful global economy that's making every other automaker miserable. Not what I'd expect of a company with such a good work ethic, and one that has built so many good cars -- and quite a few wonderful cars -- over the years.


Akio Toyoda has been quoted recently as saying Japan's strong yen could lead Toyota to "irrelevance or death." I didn't hear Toyoda's comments live. I don't know how clearly he spoke English, or whether his comments might have been poorly translated. I know this much: "irrelevance or death" and "grasping for salvation" are not "the penalty of leadership."

  

Lexus Consumer Safety Advisory :

Potential Floor Mat Interference with Accelerator Pedal

      Toyota floor mats also suspected in 2007 death

             

Widow urges Japanese automaker to act quickly to prevent more accidents

Toyota Decides to Close NUMMI Plant

In a move that marks Japanese automaker Toyota’s very first plant closure, either in Japan or abroad, the company has decided to shut down a Fremont, California plant known as NUMMI. Toyota once ran the plant as a joint venture with General Motors, but when GM had to pull out of the deal, Toyota decided that it could not afford to keep the plant open alone.
 
New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., which produces Toyota Corolla cars and Tacoma pickups, will shut down in March 2010. According to Toyota, which had previously vowed not to close down any of its plants, the move came as an act of desperation after an extended period of poor U.S. auto sales due to the economic crisis.
 
NUMMI’s shutdown marks the end of 5,400 jobs, to which Toyota paid $523 million in payroll and benefits. The situation comes at a time when California, a state already suffering from a variety of problems of its own, has had to deal with a staggering 11.9 percent unemployment rate.

Reports of Toyota RAV4 gearbox woes mount as owner anger grows...

by Michael Harley (RSS feed) on Aug 28th 2009 at 9:00AM

Imagine merging into speeding highway traffic when your transmission suddenly balks at the shift, leaving you struggling to choose between that 70,000-pound semi filling your rear view mirror or the shrinking median on the right side of the road.

This scenario is just one of the complaints being lodged against Toyota's 2001-2003 RAV4 as owners complain about the Japanese automaker's reluctance to acknowledge a fault with the so-called cute-ute's electronically-controlled transmission.

According to the reports (more than 120 complaints have been lodged to the NHTSA so far), the engine control module (ECM) may fail and send mixed signals to the transmission. Once the tranny starts to misbehave (noticed through rough or missed shifts), the ECM needs to immediately be serviced to avoid major transmission damage. Long story short, owners are miffed that Toyota has internally confirmed the issue (a TSB was issued to dealers in March of 2006), but has failed to notify consumers who are facing costly repair bills to replace transmissions when all many needed was a simple electronic module.

A spokesman for the NHTSA says the agency doesn't like to open investigations unless the problem is identified as a clear safety issue, but they "are watching it very closely." Toyota, meanwhile, is studying the issue to determine whether to extend its warranty on the parts in question.

TOYOTA LOST OVER $5 BILLION DOLLARS (USD) & IS EXPECTED TO POST A LARGER LOSS IN 2009.

By Cornelius Rahn and Kae Inoue - Bloomberg

Sept. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp. said western European car sales for the industry may fall 10 percent next year without any extension of government stimulus programs.

Car sales in that region are “artificially inflated” this year, Tadashi Arashima, chief executive officer of Toyota Motor Europe, told reporters at a press meeting in Frankfurt today. “Next year, without any government incentives, they could be down another 10 percent.”

President Akio Toyoda narrowed Toyota’s loss forecast last month as government measures to spur car demand took effect. The U.S., Germany, Japan and China offered consumers credits and subsidies for trading in old cars as the industry’s worst slump in decades forced Chrysler LLC and General Motors Corp. into bankruptcy.

“We ask governments to take more of a ‘soft-landing approach’ rather than all of a sudden” ending incentives, Arashima said.

Toyota is struggling to return to profit as it forecasts a second straight loss this fiscal year. The Toyota City, Japan- based company expects a net loss of 450 billion yen ($4.95 billion) in the year ending in March, smaller than an earlier forecast of 550 billion yen. Toyota didn’t include the effect of government incentives in the earlier estimate.

The carmaker is “in the middle of a storm,” according to Toyoda, who plans to cut costs by at least 800 billion yen to help offset a decline in global vehicle sales this fiscal year.

Industry demand in Europe was 20.95 million vehicles last year, Toyota said.

“In eastern Europe, we see signs of recovery,” Arashima said. “But recovery will not be so brisk.” Reaching 2007 sales levels in the U.S. may take 3 to 5 years, Toyota said.

While Toyota’s plants in Turkey and the U.K. are running at as low as about 60 percent of capacity, and its French production facility operates as low as 80 percent, the company doesn’t “have any plans” for laying off employees in Europe, said Didier Leroy, European executive vice president.

Toyota's troubles keep growing

 

..& ADDING A BIT OF SALT INTO THE WOUNDS :

Jeremy Mayfield, NASCAR TOYOTA DRIVER ... has been slapped an indefinite suspension for his failure to pass a random drug test.

Mayfield drives #41 All Sport Toyota Camry in the Sprint Cup Series.

The officers of the NASCAR race officials report that Mayfield failed the drug test which was conducted as a routine surprise test at Richmond International Raceway last weekend. Jim Hunter, the NASCAR spokesman did not want to reveal what exactly was the banned substance for which he was banned. But he did confirm that it was not an offense related to alcohol. Hunter emphasised that, “There is no place for substance abuse in our sport.” On the part of Mayfield the followiwas released: “In my case, I believe that the combination of a prescribed medicine and an over the counter medicine reacted together and resulted in a positive drug test. My doctor and I are working with both Dr. David Black and NASCAR to resolve the matter.”

UPDATE :

MAYFIELD HAS BEEN PERMANENTLY BANNED FROM PARTICIPATING IN NASCAR FOR LIFE !

Read more: http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/sports/jeremy-mayfield-suspended_100190709.html#ixzz0TOJicWTY