Faulty Engines in 270,000 Toyotas

NY Times

Toyota Motor Corp. said Thursday about 270,000 cars sold worldwide -- including luxury Lexus sedans -- have potentially faulty engines, the latest quality lapse to hit the automaker following massive global recalls of top-selling models.

Japan's top-selling daily Yomiuri said in its evening edition that Toyota will inform the transport ministry of a recall on Monday. The paper cited no sources.

Toyota spokesman Hideaki Homma said the company was evaluating measures to deal with the problem of defective engines that can stall while the vehicle is moving. He would not confirm a recall was being considered.

The automaker has been working to patch up its reputation after recalling more than 8 million vehicles worldwide because of unintended acceleration and other defects.

Of the 270,000 vehicles with engine problems, some 180,000 were sold overseas and the rest in Japan. They include the popular Crown and seven models of luxury Lexus sedans.

Toyota said it has received around 200 complaints in Japan over faulty engines. Some drivers told Toyota that the engines made a strange noise.

Homma said there have been no reports of accidents linked to the faulty engines.

The automaker's shares dropped 2.3 percent to close at 3,010 yen in Tokyo on Thursday.

U.S. authorities recently slapped Toyota with a record $16.4 million fine for acting too slowly to recall vehicles with defects. Toyota dealers have repaired millions of vehicles, but the automaker still faces more than 200 lawsuits tied to accidents, the lower resale value of Toyota vehicles and the drop in the company's stock.

In the aftermath of the recalls, Congress is considering an upgrade to auto safety laws to toughen potential penalties against automakers, give the U.S. government more powers to demand a recall and push car companies to meet new safety standards.

Toyota said last week it will recall 17,000 Lexus luxury hybrids after testing showed that fuel can spill during a rear-end crash.

Another Recall Announced by Toyota

NY Times

DETROIT — Toyota announced a second recall Wednesday related to the vehicle stability control system on its sport utility vehicles, this one concerning the 2003 model year Sequoia.

Toyota said it would upgrade the stability control system on 50,000 Sequoias built in the early part of the 2003 model year. It said no accidents or injuries had resulted.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a preliminary investigation into the problem in December 2008, and broadened the investigation last April.

In all, Toyota has recalled more than nine million vehicles worldwide since November, including two major recalls involving sticking accelerator pedals on a variety of its models.

On April 18, Toyota agreed to pay a $16.4 million fine imposed by the Transportation Department, which charged that the company deliberately hid information about one of the pedal-related recalls. Toyota has not admitted fault in the situation.

The stability control system is meant to control a loss of traction on the front or rear tires while the vehicle is going through a corner. Toyota said that on some of the Sequoias, the system could activate at low speeds and prevent the driver from accelerating as quickly as he or she might like.

It said it had made a design change on the vehicles during the model year, and that it had already repaired about half the vehicles involved in the recall under warranty. The vehicles were built at Toyota’s plant in Princeton, Ind., between April 2002 and April 2003.

Toyota said it had responded to individual drivers’ complaints by replacing a skid control engine control unit. It first sent dealers a technical bulletin about the matter in fall 2003.

The Sequoia recall comes a week after Toyota said it was recalling 2010 models of the Lexus GX 460, a luxury sport utility that had been deemed “not safe to drive” by Consumer Reports magazine.

In mid-April, Consumer Reports said the GX, a luxury sport utility vehicle that is new for the 2010 model year, failed to prevent its rear end from sliding sideways during sharp turns.

Toyota has temporarily stopped building and selling the vehicle, and it recalled the GX 460 and the Land Cruiser Prado, an S.U.V. sold overseas.

In the wake of the magazine’s report, the company has been testing the stability control systems across its S.U.V. lineup. But the Sequoia recall comes about 18 months after the N.H.T.S.A. opened its investigation.

At the time, the agency had received 50 complaints about problems with the stability control system, with 13 drivers saying that they had almost been involved in crashes, documents from the N.H.T.S.A. showed.

According to agency documents, Toyota initially told the N.H.T.S.A. that several issues could be involved in those complaints.

It said it believed the vehicle stability control system was operating as designed, and that the problem most likely lay in the way drivers used the traction control system. It said it had not determined that a safety-related defect existed.

Eventually, the agency and Toyota received a total of 153 complaints about the issue while the company issued five service bulletins to dealers, in all, dealing with the stability control system.

In April 2009, the investigation was upgraded to an engineering analysis, so the agency could examine the “scope, frequency and safety-related consequences” of the problem, according to the N.H.T.S.A documents.

In December, the agency asked Toyota for more in-depth information about the issue, which the automaker provided to the agency in February.

Toyota said it would begin mailing letters in late May to Sequoia owners, including those whose vehicles had already been serviced. It said it would reimburse those who paid to replace the engine control unit.

Toyota Halts Sales of Lexus SUV

The Washington Post

Toyota temporarily halted sales of its 2010 Lexus GX 460 on Tuesday after Consumer Reports labeled the sport-utility vehicles a "safety risk."

In a rare move, the influential magazine warned consumers against the vehicles because of the way the car slides during certain maneuvers, noting that those slides could be a prelude to rolling over. The publication has not issued such a warning since 2001.

"We believe that in real-world driving, that situation could lead to a rollover accident, which could cause serious injury or death," Consumer Reports said in a blog post.

Some auto safety advocates said the finding by the magazine highlights weaknesses in the federal government's system for reviewing new models.

NHTSA has not yet completed safety testing of the 2010 GX 460, according to the Web site SaferCar.gov.

Moreover, critics said, the type of problem turned up by the magazine would not have been found by the government because its tests are less involved.

"The government has a rollover course that they send vehicles through, but it's not a very rigorous test," said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety.

The National Highway Safety Traffic Administration "advises drivers of the 2010 Lexus GX 460 SUV to use care and caution," the agency said in a statement. It said it is conducting tests to verify the vehicle's adherence to federal standards and to better understand the results of the magazine test.

In a statement late Tuesday, Toyota said engineering teams were testing the GX 460 using Consumer Reports' methodology.

"We are taking the situation with the GX 460 very seriously and are determined to identify and correct the issue Consumer Reports identified," said Mark Templin, Lexus Group vice president and general manager.

The company sold 4,787 of the SUVs in the first three months of this year, 1 percent of Toyota sales, according to Edmunds.com.

The Consumer Reports finding follows months of bad publicity for Toyota stemming from the recall of millions of vehicles linked to unintended acceleration. It comes as Toyota has spent millions on consumer discounts and television advertising in an effort to revive its reputation.

In the magazine's tests, drivers take the car through a situation like one a driver might experience when exiting a highway and entering an off-ramp. At about 60 miles per hour, the driver enters a turn and then quickly lifts his or her foot off of the accelerator.

The tests were conducted by four different drivers, and in each case, the back end of the vehicle slid out.

"It was unanimous," said Jake Fisher, senior engineer at Consumer Reports and one of the test drivers. "We asked each other, 'Did you have that happen, too?' It was quite surprising."

"I've been testing cars for Consumer Reports for 11 years," he said. "I've tested hundreds of vehicles. No SUV has ever had a tail slide out so abruptly or so far."

It is not the first time the magazine has weighed in during the controversy over Toyota safety. In the wake of a recall earlier this year related to sticky gas pedals, Consumer Reports suspended its "recommended" status on eight models and has yet to reinstate it.

The nature of the problem with the GX 460 differs from unintended acceleration, but is potentially very dangerous, the magazine said. With the GX 460, the vehicle's high center of gravity heightens concerns that it could roll over in such a situation, reviewers said.

The GX460 is equipped with electronic stability control, a system that is supposed to prevent such handling difficulties through selective braking and reductions of engine power. But the system doesn't intervene quickly enough, the magazine said.

"We're in the process of testing the 2010 Lexus GX 460 SUV to ensure it complies with NHTSA's safety standard for electronic stability control, and to understand better the results obtained by Consumers Union," the federal safety agency said. "It is our belief that electronic stability control should prevent the kind of fishtail event described."

Toyota to Pay $16.4 Million Fine

NY Times

Toyota is expected to tell the Transportation Department on Monday that it will pay a $16.4 million fine, the largest government penalty ever against an automaker, for concealing information related to its sticking pedal recall.

A senior Transportation Department official said late Sunday that legal documents were still being drafted, but Toyota executives were expected to sign them at the start of business Monday. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because Toyota has not made its intentions public.

Toyota is not expected to admit wrongdoing, and the fine does not release Toyota from civil or criminal actions. Numerous lawsuits have been filed against the carmaker, by crash victims and relatives of people killed in crashes, seeking billions of dollars.

Toyota’s actions are also under investigation by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“By paying the full civil penalty, Toyota is accepting responsibility for hiding this safety defect,” the official said.

A Toyota spokesman, Mike Michels, declined to comment.

The fine is the maximum amount allowed by law. If not for that cap, Toyota could have been ordered to pay $13.8 billion instead — $6,000 for each of 2.3 million vehicles sold with defective pedals — the agency’s chief counsel told the company in a letter this month. The letter also said the agency was considering a second $16.4 million fine against Toyota, based on evidence suggesting the pedals might have had two separate defects.

An investigation into the company’s November recall of 5.4 million vehicles, to fix pedals that could become trapped under floor mats, could also result in additional fines.

The regulators, which received more than 70,000 pages of documents from Toyota, said company officials either knew or should have known the pedals were problematic for at least several months before announcing a recall Jan. 21. By law, automakers have five days after discovering a safety defect to begin a recall.

Toyota issued repair procedures in 31 European countries on Sept. 29, but executives in the United States told Congress that they did not know of reports of sticking pedals until January.

In mid-January, five days before the sticking pedal recall began, an American Toyota executive sent an e-mail message to colleagues in Japan urging them to “come clean” about the defective pedals. The company issued a recall after meeting with federal regulators Jan. 19.

Government Demands Toyota Recall Documents

mLive

Carmaker to Idle 2 U.S. Assembly Plants

WASHINGTON — The Transportation Department on Tuesday demanded documents related to Toyota's massive recalls in the United States to find out if the automaker acted swiftly enough. Toyota, meanwhile, said it will idle production temporarily at Texas and Kentucky plants over concerns the recalls could lead to big stockpiles of unsold vehicles.

The legal documents demand that Toyota tell the government when and how the company learned of the safety defects in millions of vehicles over the entrapment of gas pedals by floor mats and sticky accelerators. The documents were delivered to Toyota on Tuesday and the company must respond within 30-to-60 days or face fines.

The intensifying government investigation of Toyota and production halts at its assembly plants represented another sign of the ripple effect the recall of 8.5 million vehicles has had on the world's No. 1 automaker. Toyota faces separate probes by the Obama administration and Congress as it struggles to maintain its loyal customer base and its reputation for safety and quality.

Toyota said it was halting production temporarily in San Antonio, Texas, and Georgetown, Ky., to address concerns that too many unsold vehicles may be building up at dealerships because of the large recalls.

Company spokesman Mike Goss said the Texas plant, which builds the Tundra pickup truck, would take production breaks for the weeks of March 15 and April 12. The Kentucky plant, which makes the Camry, Avalon and Venza vehicles, plans to take a non-production day on Feb. 26 and may not build vehicles on three more days in March and April.

Toyota employs 1,850 workers at the San Antonio plant and about 6,850 at the Georgetown facility.

In late January, Toyota halted production of recalled brands throughout the United States for about a week.

The information requests from the government, similar to a subpoena, follows criticism from consumer groups that the Transportation Department was too soft on automakers and failed to fine the companies or seek detailed information from them through subpoena powers.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has defended his department's handling of the Toyota investigation, calling the Japanese automaker "a little safety deaf" about the safety problems. LaHood said the government urged Toyota to issue recalls and sent federal safety officials to Japan to warn company officials of the seriousness of the problems.

Under federal law, automakers must notify the DOT's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration within five days of determining that a safety defect exists and promptly conduct a recall.

Government investigators are looking into whether Toyota discovered the problems during preproduction or post-production of the affected vehicles, whether their recalls covered all affected vehicles and whether the company learned of the problems through consumer complaints or internal tests.

Federal officials are focusing on the two major issues behind the recalls — gas pedals that can become lodged on floor mats and pedal systems that are "sticky," making it harder for drivers to press on the pedal or ease up on the gas.

The information requests seek detailed timelines on when Toyota first became aware of the problems, how they handled complaints, how much they have paid out in warranty claims over pedal problems, internal communications about pedals and company officials involved in making decisions about the issue.

NHTSA also wants to know how seriously Toyota considered the possibility that electronics of the gas pedal system may play a role. The company has said tests show that the electronics were not to blame. But federal safety officials want to know how Toyota dealt with complaints that might not be related to floor mats or sticking pedals.

Kathleen DeMeter, the director of NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation Enforcement, wrote that the agency was "seeking to determine whether Toyota viewed the underlying defects too narrowly...without fully considering the broader issue of unintended acceleration and any associated safety-related defects that warrant recalls."

Congress is also investigating. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is holding a hearing on the Toyota recalls on Feb. 24 and the House Energy and Commerce Committee has scheduled a Feb. 25 hearing. Toyota Motor North America chief executive Yoshi Inaba, LaHood and NHTSA Administrator David Strickland are expected to testify at both meetings.

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee has scheduled a March 2 hearing but has not yet announced its witness list.

Toyota has stepped up its lobbying ahead of the hearings by highlighting its workers and U.S. production.

It flew production workers into Washington a day before a blizzard last week to highlight the company's commitment to quality and safety. The company also received help from the governors of four states with Toyota plants — including Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear — who called on Congress to be fair to the automaker.

Toyota has been fixing vehicles under recall. Toyota Vice President Bob Carter told reporters at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention in Orlando, Fla., on Monday that the company had repaired about 500,000 of the 2.3 million vehicles recalled over a potentially sticky gas pedal.

Toyota president Akio Toyoda is expected to answer questions in Japan Wednesday about the company's recalls.

Toyota Accused of 'Not Being Frank' on Accelerator Problem

Detroit Free Press

When owners of Lexus sedans began reporting harrowing crashes involving stuck accelerator pedals in early 2007, Toyota told U.S. safety regulators there was no safety problem with its floor mats -- but it would send owners an orange warning sticker just to be sure.

The flaw has since been linked to at least 12 deaths, and last week, Toyota expanded its recall over floor mats to 5.3 million vehicles. As with a separate recall of 2.3 million cars and trucks for sticky pedals that also could cause sudden acceleration, the automaker downplayed early warnings of both problems.

A Free Press review of documents from nine U.S. investigations since 2003 into sudden acceleration complaints show Toyota repeatedly ruled out many owner complaints, dismissed several concerns as posing no danger and modified models in production without offering similar changes to vehicles already on the road. Not until the 2007 floor mat investigation did any of the complaints lead to a recall.

Safety advocates and attorneys for owners suing over sudden acceleration say Toyota has simply stonewalled.

"I think Toyota is still scrambling to find the root causes of all the sudden acceleration that's been reported to them," said Don Slavik, a Milwaukee attorney representing a California man whose wife died in a crash off a cliff in their 2005 Toyota Camry that he blames on sudden acceleration.

The automaker has defended its actions, saying defects weren't found in most probes, that it fully cooperated with regulators and did not try to minimize safety concerns.

But Toyota also said it continuously reviews data for signs of safety defects, and would look back over prior complaints.

"We never truly close an investigation," said Toyota spokesman Brian Lyons.

Toyota had to be pressured

With its decision to recall vehicles for faulty gas pedals, Toyota reversed calls it made in 2007 and 2008 that the same pedals weren't a safety threat in response to consumer complaints in the United States and Europe.

The Japanese automaker made several similar decisions in earlier investigations involving sudden acceleration, and had to be pressured by federal regulators into a recall of floor mats that could trap gas pedals. That recall has grown to cover 5.4 million vehicles.

Sean Kane, a safety researcher who works with attorneys pursuing cases against Toyota, said Friday that he had found 19 deaths and 341 injuries stemming from 815 separate crashes involving Toyotas and sudden acceleration.

"This company is not being frank about the causes of sudden acceleration," Kane said. "We need to get down to the cause, and get it resolved quickly."

Automakers launch most safety recalls on their own, without prodding from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. NHTSA keeps watch on consumer complaints it receives along with accident data, but has to rely on the companies for the data needed in safety investigations, which the automakers often try to interpret to their benefit. The Free Press reported last week that in 2003, Toyota hired a former NHTSA investigator to handle relations with the agency.

The agency typically gets a fairly small number of sudden-acceleration complaints annually, but in recent years, Toyota has received far more than other automakers. Over the past 10 years, NHTSA had launched more investigations into sudden acceleration in Toyotas than all other automakers combined.

Hundreds of complaints

Since the 1990s, NHTSA had concluded that most sudden acceleration complaints were caused by drivers mistakenly hitting the gas pedal instead of the brake. When a Massachusetts man asked in April 2003 for an investigation of 1997-2000 model Lexus sedans, citing 271 complaints of unintended acceleration, the agency rejected his request without querying Toyota for data.

On Jan. 22, 2004, an elderly Las Vegas couple died after the 2002 Camry they were driving sped off the fourth floor of a parking deck at the Golden Nugget casino. Their son later told NHTSA that witnesses saw the car stop, then accelerate off the deck.

In February 2004, a nurse from Maryland asked the agency to review the 2002 and 2003 Lexus ES350 sedans, saying her throttle had malfunctioned several times and led to one crash. A month later, NHTSA launched a wider investigation into the electronic throttles on nearly 1 million Lexus and Toyota sedans, citing more than 100 complaints.

From the start, Toyota pushed NHTSA to narrowly define the problem as short bursts where the engine surged to "something less than a wide-open throttle." It compared many of the complaints to the prior sudden acceleration cases that NHTSA had deemed driver error. Toyota also said the computer could not open the throttle without the accelerator pedal being pressed, and said even if built-in safety checks failed, stepping on the brakes would stop the car.

But the company did reveal that it was conducting a "customer satisfaction campaign" to replace motors controlling the throttle, which could fail and send vehicles into a "limp home" mode. Such campaigns are typically made available to only owners who suffer the problem. It also admitted it bought back two vehicles from owners who had complained of repeated sudden-acceleration events.

After four and a half months, NHTSA closed its investigation, saying it could find no evidence of a defect and no trends in warranty and repair data suggesting faulty electric parts. Since then, no NHTSA investigation has found a defect in Toyota's electronic throttle controls.

Despite the findings, owners kept asking the agency for another look.

Keep digging

Three times -- in 2005, 2006 and 2008 -- Toyota customers asked NHTSA to investigate uncontrolled acceleration in their vehicles stemming from electronic throttle controls. Despite hundreds of complaints, NHTSA found no evidence of a defect in any of the cases. In all cases, Toyota provided data it said showed no evidence of defects, and in the 2008 look into Tacoma pickups, Toyota contended many of the complaints were "inspired by publicity."

Jordan Ziprin, a retired Phoenix attorney who filed the 2006 request, said the new recalls were evidence that Toyota was hiding its problems with electronic engine controls.

"It's just a matter of time before they get to that issue, which is going to be very, very expensive for Toyota," he said.

NHTSA officials declined to comment.

Toyota did find some problems that needed fixing -- just like the pedals in 2007 and 2008.

During the 2006 investigation, Toyota discovered corrosion inside some throttles on Camry sedans and changed the part in production. But it did not make the change available to vehicles on the road and minimized the change to NHTSA, saying it would only happen "under certain circumstances, such as driving through a flooded road, in the heavy rain, or a hurricane."

Fixing part of the problem

But with the investigations of Lexus floor mats that began in March 2007, the company's actions were not sufficient to satisfy NHTSA. After reports of seven injuries from vehicles with pedals trapped by all-season floor mats, Toyota once again said there was no safety issue. It did say it would mail owners and dealers with instructions for how to install the floor mats, along with an orange sticker and doubling the height of a warning embossed on the surface to 10 millimeters.

"There is no possibility of the pedal interference with the all-weather floor mat if it's placed properly and secured," the automaker told regulators in April 2007.

But by August, federal regulators had found 12 deaths linked to the mats. A survey of 600 Lexus owners found 59 reporting sudden or unexpected acceleration. NHTSA also found evidence that in some crashes, owners were standing on the brakes yet unable to stop their vehicles. Toyota issued its first recall in September 2007 covering 55,000 vehicles.

NHTSA began testing some of Toyota's claims about the problem. It found that the brakes in the Lexus ES350 sedan could stop an engine at wide-open throttle -- but only after 1,000 feet, and only with five times the amount of pressure usually needed to bring the car to a halt.

Regulators were also worried about confusion from the start-stop buttons that Toyota had installed in many models instead of keys. The automaker told regulators that the engine could be shut off in an emergency if drivers held the button for three seconds.

But early in 2009, as part of another customer petition, Toyota disclosed that its owner's manuals incorrectly stated that the start-stop buttons would turn the vehicle off only if the transmission was in park. Toyota said it would change manuals for new models, but once again did not offer to update those already on the road.

And despite a rising tally of injuries and crashes, including the death of a California Highway Patrol officer and three family members, it would take another two years for Toyota to expand the floor mat recall to several other models. When it did in September of last year, it denied at first that the issue met the legal standard for a defect.

Under pressure from NHTSA officials, Toyota relented and dubbed the move a recall. In November, it agreed to make software changes that would shut down a gas pedal if the brakes were applied at the same time, along with reshaping the pedals to avoid contact. Those fixes aren't expected to be available until April.

Toyota also will buy back all all-season floor mats that first launched the investigation, telling regulators that "Toyota appreciates this opportunity to cooperate with NHTSA."

Toyota President Akio Toyoda broke his silence over the recalls Friday on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, with an apology to owners.

"We're extremely sorry to have made customers uneasy," Toyoda told Japan broadcaster NHK. "We plan to establish the facts and give an explanation that will restore confidence as soon as possible."

Toyota's Pedal-Repair Plans Due Next Week

Detroit Free Press

Toyota will announce plans next week for repairing 2.3 million vehicles under recall for accelerator pedals that could stick, but the timeframe for completing the repairs has yet to be finalized, the company said Friday.

The Japanese automaker took another public relations hit when Consumer Reports, one of the most-watched arbiters of automotive quality, pulled its "recommended" ratings from the eight Toyota models whose sales have been halted until Toyota provides a repair. The magazine also advised shoppers to avoid used models under the recall.

Toyota was also summoned to a U.S. House Oversight committee hearing next Thursday on the recall. It had already been asked to provide data and testify at a Feb. 25 hearing by a House Energy and Commerce

subcommittee headed by Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak after committee staffers explored the issue with Toyota earlier this week and were left with several questions.

Combined with a recall of 5.4 million vehicles because of floor mats that could also lead to sudden acceleration, Toyota now has 5.6 million vehicles under recall.

The automaker had been working on two possible repairs dealers could perform for the accelerator pedal flaw and had discussed options with federal regulators.

CTS, the supplier that made the pedal at the center of the recall, said it is building replacement pedals in its factories.

"We will not start recalling and repairing vehicles, but we will be able to tell people what our plans are and a tentative start date for those plans," said Toyota spokesman Brian Lyons.

Toyota's European operations said Friday its recall for the same problem would cover up to 1.8 million vehicles, but the automaker did not plan to stop production of the affected models as it had in North America.

The six plants where the models are built in the United States and Canada halt production for at least one week starting Monday.

Consumer Reports said its yanking of the recommended label was necessary because "our position is that you shouldn't compromise on safety," said Jim Guest, president of Consumers Union, which issues Consumer Reports.

The move also applied to the Pontiac Vibe, which Toyota had built for GM until this year.

GM said Friday the Vibe was safe to drive and it was waiting for more information from Toyota.

Also on Friday, Hyundai and Chrysler joined Ford and General Motors in offering incentives for Toyota owners to buy their vehicles.