Toyota in denial or simply lying?
 

Check out this story and video if you haven't already:

http://www.leftlanenews.com/toyota-p...san-diego.html

So this is obviously still happening, and now to a Prius. Is Toyota in denial about the seriousness and extent of this problem, or are they simply lying to try and save their business at the disregard for life? Either way it's dangerous and sad. You can't call this a witch hunt with proof like this that Toyota STILL hasn't fixed this problem.

On a side note, why didn't the cop tell the driver to shift to neutral over the loudspeaker instead of to use the parking brake? Are they really that dumb or was the driver unable to shift?

Apparently, unintended acceleration is not limited to one car or one manufacturer. It is a worldwide issue.

Dave do you work for Toyota or are you just the most blindly brand loyal person on earth?

Stic,

It's the same old story: Microsoft dominates computers so they are attacked, daily. As they say, "It's tough being number one, no matter what business you're in." AT&T found their cell phone business soaring past Verison after the i-phone was introduced, so guess which company was attacked on all fronts - AT&T. It is so obvious that it is comical when I read the newspapers.

A few weeks ago, I stopped at the gas station and noticed that the railings near the front door of the store were all mangled up. When I asked the attendant what happened, he told me that a car plowed into them - unintended acceleration! He then went on to say that the police told him that the driver (in his 80s) accidentally hit the gas pedal instead of the brake.

I'm sure the story ended up being that his Buick was faulty and should be recalled.

Last week, while in a meeting, I asked everyone if anyone had a Toyota or Lexus in their household or among family members. Everyone in the room (about 10 people) owns one or more than one. In fact, if we counted all of our relatives, we're talking many dozens of Toyotas/Lexus. And yet, not one of us has had an issue or even knew ANYONE personally, including cousins, aunts, and uncles who ever had an acceleration problem.
I then asked them if any one is thinking about selling. Not one wanted to sell. Everone in that room agreed that their Toyota was the most reliable vehicle they had ever had.

Are they brand loyal? You betcha! Is the "untintended acceleration issue so widespread that the majority of Toyota owners should sell their vehicles, citing the imminent threat of death?

No way!

Dave.....I love how you always have to bring up German cars every time someone brings up Toyota's problem. Enough please..... you have gotta be the biggest Toyota nut swinger on the earth. I still agree they make a great car and yes only the cars that are problems are getting the press (millions of cars out there with no problems) but c'mon man..... if you cant see a serious issue here then you are blind as a bat, if any manufacturer had this many reports linked to failure they would be all over the news as well...... the media is a bunch of liberal tree huggers so Im sure they are very dissapointed that their poster child "GREEN" car is having issues.

Toyota couldn't have written it better theirselves. Try to sell that BS story and Lexus of yours and see how much luck you have. This is a big problem, and Toyota is in PR mode feeding the media a bunch of crap to save their butts when they SHOULD be throwing all of their effort, tallent, and money into FINDING the problem and FIXING it. Mark my words, this will someday be a case study for business students on how to not handle a crisis. Toyota will soon be the 2nd or 3rd biggest car maker in Japan, let alone the world.

I think they are simply lying to tell you teh truth.

What bothers me about the whole thing is how long they've known about it. Ok, they had something like the largest recall in automotive history. All automakers have recalls though, you can't get it right all the time. But, they certainly don't wait this long. Hyundai, for instance, were getting complaints about their all new 2011 Sonota. What did they do? They recalled the car that had been on the market for only about a month. Toyota knew about this crap since, what, 2003 or something like that? 6-7 years is a long and careless amount of time to let something like this go. It just seems like they didn't even care.

I also think they were lying about the floor mats to begin with. Anyone with a brain knows that floor mats were not the problem, but Toyota tried to use that as the initial excuse anyhow. But think about it. If the floor mats were the problem, then wouldn't they simply replace the floor mats or take them out when a vehicle came to the garage? No, they spend all this money completely overhauling the pedal system. They know something's up, they just don't want to admit it.

And you know what aggravates me the most? The fact that when Mr. Toyota held his first official press conference about all this, he made a powerful statement. He said that his biggest regret about the entire situation was the amount of loyal Toyota customers he had lost. Not the 52 people (34 at the time) that had died. Not the people who were and still are worried sick to even touch their own car. No, his biggest regret was lost customers.

Toyota deserves each and every ounce of what they get out of this situation. They screwed up, and it's time for them to learn from their mistake. I simply cannot understand how that many people in a corporation can be so collectively dumb. It's amazes me.

Have any of you guys ever had a stuck gas pedal because of a carpet mat that slid forward? I have (my 68 C3) and it was terrifying. The ES350 that crashed and burned had a mat from an RX400h. That's right - the WRONG mat that was not secured properly.

Much of this witch-hunting started with a sliding mat! As I mentioned previously, MANY car manufacturers have had complaints about "sudden acceleration".
Business classes also contain mention of the "woodwork factor". People will "come out of the woodwork" whenever there is a hint of a class action suit. The "deep pocket syndrome" is another popular subject that casts a dark shadow over the law profession.

We really need to have Myth busters try to get a Toyota to take off uncontrollably. This would probably enrage quite a few of you guys when they fail to get a pedal to electronically move forward on its own.

...this just in....

NEW YORK – Reports of sudden acceleration in the Toyota Prius have spiked across the country. But that doesn't mean there's an epidemic of bad gas pedals in the popular hybrid.

Experts on consumer psychology say the relentless negative media attention Toyota has received since the fall makes it much more likely that drivers will mistake anything unexpected — or even a misplaced foot — for actual danger.

"When people expect problems, they're more likely to find them," said Lars Perner, a professor of clinical marketing at Marshall School of Business at University of Southern California.

In just the first 10 weeks of this year, 272 complaints have been filed nationwide for speed control problems with the Prius, according to an Associated Press analysis of unverified complaints received by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

By comparison, only 74 complaints were filed in all of last year, and just eight the year before that.

For problems with the brakes, rather than the gas, the figures are even more stark: 1,816 filed so far this year versus just 90 in all of 2009 and fewer than 20 in every other year of the last decade. Toyota recalled 440,000 Priuses on Feb. 8 because its antilock brakes seemed to fail momentarily on bumpy roads.

It's doubtful the Priuses of the past two years suddenly became more dangerous than those made in years past. After all, Toyota's own recall for Prius floor mats that can trap gas pedals covers model years 2004 to 2009.

The phenomenon has plenty of parallels.

In 2003, thanks to a media blitz by the police union, New Yorkers were convinced the cops were on a ticket-writing spree, for everything from sitting on a milk crate to resting on the steps of subway station. It turned out tickets were actually on the decline.

Think of medical students who learn about all sorts of disorders and then suspect they may be stricken by them. Or muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens, who competed for police scoops with his fellow newspapermen and once wrote: "I enjoy crime waves. I made one once."

Even the heightened number of complaints is relatively small compared with how many Priuses are on the road. Toyota sold about 750,000 of them from 2004 to 2009.

But as long as reports of Prius profile keep rolling in — just look at the extensive coverage given to a single crash in that New York suburb, something that would have gone utterly unnoticed a year ago — expect complaints to keep rising.

"We are basically anticipating them happening, and we may be prone to jump to conclusions," said L.J. Shrum, a marketing professor who specializes in consumer psychology at University of Texas at San Antonio.
___

AP Auto Writer Tom Krisher reported from Detroit. AP Auto Writer Dan Strumpf in New York and Associated Press writers Jim Fitzgerald in Harrison, N.Y., Emily Fredrix in New York and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.

How unfortunate that I create a thread, only to have it highjacked by Dave, who happens to have an opinion shared by nobody else on the forum as far as I can tell.

Obviously, my opinion is shared by analysts, marketing professors, and auto writers as well.

Opinions are fine.......keep the thread on track..toyota only

Yes Dave, your opinion is shared by all fo the analysts and professors that TOYOTA HAS HIRED TO SPEAK ON THEIR BEHALF. This has been openly admitted. Virtually anyone else who is qualified to know anything wants to know what Toyota is hiding in their electronics. Now please kindly go away; you frustrate me to no end.

Apparently a 2006 memo from Toyota factory workers voiced concerns about the safety of Toyota cars...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...els-safety-row

Are you saying that every one of the sources I quoted are paid by Toyota? Sorry, but you'll have to prove that one.

By the way, this is not communist China. We can provide our own and other's opinions when you post a thread. :flag:

So the opinion of some here is that Toyota knows exactly what the problem is, and denies it, knows exactly how to fix it, and refuses to?

At this point...WHY? What's the upside to Toyota staying in denial mode if they really know what the problem is and how to fix it?

Personally, I have a suspicion that many of these recent stories are "fingers in the chili".

Oh come on man... they may not know what the exact problem is within their computer systems, but they do know for sure that replacing them would bankrupt the company. Billions upon billions to fix. Either they know the exact problem and it's a cover-up to save their butts, or they are dragging their feet hoping it stops on its own, or else they are in full denial. Either way, they're getting what they deserve.


Watch this clip though. It really seems like they try to keep engineering info away from American courts whenever something goes wrong. They have been doing that long before the recent problems happened, and it makes it look like they have something to hide.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/...iref=allsearch

They don't know what the problem is. They have so many subassemblies and suppliers, it will take them a long time to pin point the problem, as far as "is there really a problem" YES there is.