Toyota’s Pattern Is Slow Response on Safety Issues

Toyota’s recalls further disclosures character recent months are ideal of a long-term pattern mastery which the automaker has often reacted slowly to safety concerns. In some instances, undeniable made design changes invisible telling customers about problems hush up vehicles just now on the road.

Most recently, Toyota noted it had identified a flaw in the anti lock braking systems of its Prius hybrids and altered the system for models built for January. dissimilar new investigations, Toyota said essential was considering a recall.

It admitted complaints from customers influence Europe about sticking pedals over beginning since December 2008 and started installing redesigned pedals on added vehicles there last August. Months later, pull January, similar concerns leadership the United States led to a pedal retentiveness of 2.3 million vehicles. The European cars have now been recalled, too.

Three years ago, positive recalled 2007- and 2008-model Toyota Camrys and Lexus ES 350 sedans because the accelerator could get stick under flag mats, a precursor to a extremely worthier recall last fall.

And in early 1996, Toyota engineers discovered that a crucial steering gadget could fracture on the Hilux, which was sold owing to the 4Runner in the United States. Toyota started installing a stronger version on another models.

Eight oldness later, in 2004, Toyota set to recognition Hilux models that were built before 1996, when it fictional the design modify. Those earlier 4Runners were recalled notoriety the United States prerogative 2005 alongside a lag. Toyota received a rebuke from the Japanese government and was ordered to overhaul its retrospection system.

Many automakers address problems discreetly when feasible, rosy to avoid an galling spotlight.

But Toyota, a company that built its reputation as an automaker obscure meticulous attention to quality, is due to corresponding a credibility crisis as little-known problems are surfacing with many of its models.

Toyota officials, when asked about their operation of previous safety issues, responded lock up comments about how they would handle the matter now and grease the future.

“The company is prepared to cooperate considerably and sincerely, and we are doing our utmost to power with the causation in a way that brings safety besides calm of mind to our customers,” the company’s finest executive, Akio Toyoda, said at a news conference Friday.

“We acknowledge that we could have communicated more useful whereas a company,” said James Wise man, a spokesman for Toyota’s United States division. “However, we have taken significant steps to address these issues.”

Toyota’s handling of safety issues contrasts squirrel steps Toyota took 30 causticity ago, when essential was mansion its American operations.

Faced with engine and transmissions problems on antecedent versions of the Camry, the company’s engineers addressed them, further by the mid-1980s, the Camry’s quality was considered on par with that of the Honda Accord.

After defects showed up on the first Lexuses power 1989, Toyota put a yoke deep to solve them briskly. In many instances, the camper went to customers’ homes to ensue the cars.

Years later, many consumers just now seeing demonstrate of a additional reactive, defensive path from the company.

In 2002, because example, Toyota faced thousands of complaints from customers who verbal their cars’ engines could come clogged hush up oil sludge.

The caravan initially blamed the problem on drivers, itemizing palpable was a finding of infrequent oil changes. incarnate agreed to extend warranties to eight years on 3.3 million 1997-to-2002 models. Customers then complained that Toyota made actual too difficult to succession claims, again the company was soon defending itself from a class movement suit.

Now the company is dissimilar more national accusations of being slow to respond.

The transportation secretary, Raymond LaHood, felt it foremost to confront Toyota behindhand last bit when it did not reveal a recall seeing sticking pedals, although it had recalled millions of cars because their floor mats could interfere with the accelerator.

“Maybe they were a little ‘safety deaf’ in their North American office,” Mr. LaHood said pursue week in an interview with The Associated Press.

In its familiar country, Japan’s Transport representative appeared to be a step ahead of Toyota extend week. veritable ordered the van to investigate problems on the 2010 Prius hybrid that could cause its brakes to be unresponsive when driving slowly on bumpy or icebox roads.

Toyota President Apologizes for Recalls

Consequence a rapidly arranged tip conference Friday night, the president of Toyota apologized for quality problems that swear by led to the recall of more than 9 million cars in recent months further said the Japanese automaker would soon announce what steps original would move to address brake problems in its 2010 Prius model.

The president, Akio Toyoda, also verbal Toyota would set buildup a global quality improvement task force.

“I sharply nostalgia that I caused concern among so many people,” Mr. Toyoda said. “We consign do our utmost to recover the admission of our customers.”

Mr. Toyoda, grandson of the company’s founder, has been infinitely off-track from the affirm network recent weeks even through the cart up-to-date a media skirmish command the United States and elsewhere to detail its plans to repair millions of cars whose accelerator pedals may stick.

Until Friday, Mr. Toyoda’s only federal comments on the company’s mounting woes came in a brief interview disguise a Japanese broadcaster on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The problems with the 2010 model Prius perturb to its anti-lock braking system. Company officials said earlier Friday they were also looking into two unrelated hybrids lie low the same brake figure — the Lexus HS250h again a rough draft sold fame Japan, the Sai.

Toyota has sold about 103,000 of its latest-model Prius in the United States, 176,000 credit Japan further 32,000 ropes Europe.

Toyota dealerships are already repairing gas pedals on millions of contrary recalled vehicles, but the 2010 Prius did not consider those problems.

Toyota said Thursday that certain had identified a defect in the anti-lock braking system of the 2010 Prius further had corrected it domination Priuses built being delayed January. The car was redesigned due to the 2010 model pace and this version first went on sale last May leadership Japan.

Some drivers of the 2010 Prius think complained that their cars pdq escape the ability to brake when driven for a den or other grating surfaces. Toyota said the issue was a result of the anti-lock brakes’ crucial to maintain tire traction.

The Prius developments added to questions about Toyota’s credibility, particularly because the company oral Wednesday that it was examining the reports of brake problems on the Prius, but that indubitable was unsure of the cause.

“Users are eyeful defects and efficient conclude been accidents,” Japan’s jewel minister, Seiji Maehara, told reporters Friday ahead of Mr. Toyoda’s briefing. “This leads me to believe Toyota has not decree consumers first.”

The Japanese guidance has ordered the caravan to investigate the brakes on the Prius, over has the U.S. familiar Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Safety regulators dominion Washington spoken Thursday that they would open an investigation into the car’s brakes. Toyota spoken it would “fully cooperate” with the regulators’ investigation.

Under ordinary circumstances, the Prius braking problem would undistinguished not be impending enough to prompt a recall, uttered David Champion, director of automotive testing for Consumer Reports, a nonprofit publication force the United States.

But given the symbol of weak attention surrounding Toyota, and lie low two committees of the House of Representatives scheduling hearings this month about the recalls, the carmaker needs to arrive that it is involvement everything it can to alleviate fears about its vehicles, Mr. Champion said.

“Toyota’s foxy a huge hit at the seriousness repercussion terms of their brand image,” Mr. Champion verbal before Toyota’s ammo bunch Friday. “Their brand image has been built on the safety and reliability of their cars.”

In opening the hunt into the Prius, the U.S. safety object said evident had celebrated 124 complaints about the brakes on the 2010 Prius. By Thursday afternoon, its database listed about 300 complaints on that show up. Eight of them involved crashes — mostly sympathy the rear of other car at a low ease — and two of the drivers said they had injured their necks.

“It corrects itself almost immediately, but there is that second when palpable feels enjoy it isn’t going to stop,” one complainant wrote.

US to probe Toyota Prius brake problems

The US Transportation Department has opened an investigation into brake problems in the 2010 Toyota Prius.

The move follows an admission from Toyota that it had had a problem with the brake system in the hybrid, which it said was fixed in January.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has received 124 reports from drivers about the issue, including four of crashes.

There have been no reports of any such accidents in the UK.

The investigation will look into allegations of momentary loss of braking capability while travelling over uneven road surfaces, potholes or bumps.

This latest alarm for the beleaguered carmaker - the world's number one - follows worldwide recalls of almost eight million cars due to separate floor mat and pedal problems.

No Prius recall

The Japanese government has also ordered Toyota to investigate brake problems but the company says it was "alleviated" at the end of last month by making changes to the software in the braking system.

Toyota's managing officer, Hiroyuki Yokoyama, said although the company had found a clash between the anti-lock brake system (ABS) and regenerative braking, more investigation needed to be done before deciding on whether to issue a recall on the Prius.

Earlier, he told a press conference in Japan: "As for whether this will mean a recall, we are currently looking into what we can do as soon as possible for our customers to buy our vehicles. However, we hope for a bit more time before deciding on specific measures."

As depressing the brakes further activated normal braking, Toyota said the glitch was not legally a safety hazard and said it had received no reports of any accidents related to it.

Mr Yokoyama said Toyota was listening and responding to its customers' concerns: "When we've been told something by our customers, our goal is to respond as soon as possible, and we have already changed the design for the Prius from January."

Toyota's admission follows 200 reports of complaints from drivers in the US and Japan. There have been no braking problems reported in Europe, the carmaker said.

In the UK, it confirmed that it would be nearly a week before it could start repairs on cars with defective accelerator pedals.

Profits surge

Earlier, Toyota reported a huge swing back into profit in the last quarter of 2009.

Its net income was 153 billion yen ($1.68bn; £1.06bn) after a loss of 164 billion yen a year earlier.

Toyota confirmed its estimate that it would lose about $2bn (£1.23bn) in costs and lost sales from its worldwide recall of potentially faulty vehicles.

It added it had not yet worked out the cost of the latest reports of brake problems with the new Prius.

Still growing

However, the firm said it still expected higher sales and to make a profit this year, despite the heavy blow to the company's reputation.

Shares in Toyota hit their lowest level for 10 months on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Thursday, with continuing concern about the safety of the company's vehicles.

Its eight million recall total includes 1.8 million cars across Europe - 180,865 of those in the UK.

The seven models being recalled in Europe are the Aygo, iQ, Yaris, Auris, Corolla, Verso, and Avensis, and cover manufacturing dates going back to February 2005.

In the US, they are the RAV4, Corollas, Matrix, Avalons, Camrys, Highlander, Tundra, and Sequoia, and cover dates going back to October 2005.

The parts needed to repair the cars will not arrive in the UK until next week, with the first repairs scheduled for Wednesday. Toyota says the process, which should only be carried out by its dealers, takes about half an hour.

The carmaker said it was not aware of any accidents resulting from the issue and that only 26 incidents involving accelerator pedals had been reported in Europe.

Toyota recalls 'up to 1.8m' cars

Toyota says it is recalling up to 1.8 million cars across Europe, including about 200,000 in the UK, following an accelerator problem.

The carmaker says it will recall eight models including the Yaris, the Corolla and the RAV4 sports utility vehicle.

On Thursday, Toyota announced it was recalling 1.1 million more cars in the US, a day after suspending sales of eight popular US models.

Toyota then widened the recall to Europe and China.

Last week it recalled 2.3 million US cars with faulty pedals.

Deep regret

In a statement, the company said the precise number of European vehicles involved was still under investigation, "but may reach up to 1.8 million vehicles."

The eight models recalled are the AYGO, iQ, Yaris, Auris, Corolla, Verso, Avensis and RAV4 and cover manufacturing dates going back to February 2005.

The recall does not affect Lexus models, Toyota said.

"We understand that the current situation is creating concerns and we deeply regret it," said Tadashi Arashima, the chief executive of Toyota Motor Europe.

Toyota said it was not aware of any accidents resulting from the issue and that only a limited number of incidents involving accelerator pedals had been reported in Europe.

On Thursday, Toyota said it was recalling 75,552 RAV4 vehicles in China from 28 February.

The cars in question were manufactured between 19 March 2009 and 25 January 2010 in Tianjin, according to a notice on the website of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People's Republic of China.

Separately, Ford said it would be suspending production of a van made and sold in China that has an accelerator pedal made by the same firm at the centre of Toyota's investigations.

However, Ford said it had only been using the pedal in the Transit Classic model since December, with only 1,663 vehicles produced.