A lot of Toyota dealers are going to find it difficult to grind out their end-of-month goals, thanks to a stop-sale directive from the company that covers eight different models. Approximately 36,000 vehicles in dealer stock and an unknown number of additional vehicles inbound to dealers will have to be held.
Automotive News reports that a South Korean supplier notified Toyota that the parts used in its seat heaters did not meet United States standards for flame retardation. The company is preparing to replace the seat heaters with regulations-compliant parts.
The affected vehicles:
- 2013 and 2014 Camry sedans
- 2013 and 2014 Camry hybrids
- 2013 and 2014 Avalon sedans
- 2013 and 2014 Avalon hybrids
- 2013 and 2014 Corolla
- 2013 and 2014 Sienna
- 2013 and 2014 Tundra
- 2013 and 2014 Tacoma
Vehicles on the above list with heated fabric seats built since August 2012 are at risk. NHTSA has yet to issue any findings or opinions on the matter.
If you’re in the market for a fabric-interior Toyota with heated seats, you’re facing a wait. If you’re in the market for a leather-interior Toyota with heated seats, now’s the time to move. Like now. Oh, what a feeling!
Update: Toyota contacted us regarding the use of the word “fire” in the initial post, noting that “The fabric in the seats is flame retardant, it is a matter of HOW flame retardant when tested. Per NHTSA regulations Toyota will file a petition for a determination that this non-compliance issue is inconsequential relative to motor vehicle safety. NHTSA will determine if the petition will be accepted or denied.” To prevent a misunderstanding, we’ve amended the text. The picture at the top of the article stays, but now only because we enjoy the music of Alicia Keys— JB
Geez, Toyota sure got burned.
Next up, stop ships for putting the “Might cause Cancer in California” label on crooked.
This really burns my ass!
Apparently, these cars are really hot seaters. I mean hot sellers.
Its hard to imagine that this Korean supplier only supplies Toyota. Who else uses this non-compliant fabric, and why haven’t they put a stop on sales as well?
Agreed. Given the sharing of parts across Japanese manufacturers, Kia, Hyundai home country, and GMs presence and manufacturing ops – I have to wonder who else is impacted.
Here is another question – which I didn’t post so discretely below, what other manufacturers offer cloth heated seats in 2012+ models? I honestly didn’t think you could get factory heated seats from anyone in North America with cloth surfaces.
I can confirm Subaru was offering them in cloth seats as early as 1998.
My 1997 outback has them. Part of the cold weather package : Heated mirrors,seats and a block heater.
My 1995 Volvo 850 came standard with cloth heated seats
My ’13 Focus has the winter package, which includes heated cloth seats.
I test drove a 2013 Forester X Premium with heated cloth seats before deciding on a leather-equipped XT.
VW as well
A significant number of cars in Canada offer heated cloth seats (cold winters, tight budgets) – VW, Mitsubishi, Hyundai, and Kia all seem to have them on most of their cars.
Heated cloth available on new Cherokee.
Yep, I’m driving a (Peter) North Edition Patriot right now (AWD stick shift of course) and it has cloth heated seats. I prefer cloth over cold leather in the winter.
Thanks everyone – I had no idea this was so ubiquitous. Been a while since I bought a new car, guess in the future I need to look at the spec sheet more closely. I consider heated seats a “must” but I always thought heated seats requires leather.
Learn something new everyday.
My old car has heated cloth seats, but the new one has heated leather. All in all, I much prefer the cloth.
It is not a Korean Supplier. Korean safety officials who use the same standard as NHTSA were testing a Camry Hybrid assembled in the USA. When the test failed they informed Toyota and Toyota issued the stop sale and notified the NHTSA.
Also the stop sale affects all cars with heated seats, leather or fabric.
“One soft material beneath the seat covers does not comply with U.S. safety standards, Toyota US spokesman John Hanson said.”
“Earl Stewart, owner of a dealership in North Palm Beach, Fla., said he can sell only a few of the 30 Avalon full-size cars on his lot because most have heated leather seats. ‘‘Hopefully we’ll get some parts in where we can get them fixed by the end of February,’’ he said. Other models such as the Camry aren’t as affected because they are more often sold with unheated cloth seats, he said
It’s OK – because this will be a recall when it’s all said and done, it won’t count in Consumer Reports “dots”
The next story will be the temporary removal of the CR “recommends” on these vehicles – until such time all repairs are done. We know this dance music already.
I wonder how many vehicles are actually impacted – I always associated heated seats with leather, pleather, Naugahyde, synthetic suede, etc. etc.
I actually didn’t know you could get vehicles with cloth heated seats from the factory in general (Toyota or otherwise). Also didn’t know on a 2013 Corolla you could get heated seats – period – regardless of seat coverings.
My conclusion – bean counters, whether they be Detroit bean counter, Munich bean counters, Seoul bean counters, Adelaide bean counters, Beijing bean counters, Paris bean counters, or Tokyo bean counters – SUCK.
I was surprised as well. I thought only their Germans let you heat you butt on cloth. With all other manufacturers whean shopping for cars you are always pushed to the highest trim with leather to get heated front seats. It is kind of sad since in the snow belt I like to get heated mirrors and (the wife) wants heated seats… but other than that don’t even want the high-trim options.
For a 2005 Mazda 3 i had the dealer install deat heating in the cloth seats ($350 I believe), which worked great. I’m sure it wasn’t fire-retardent cloth as seated heats were not an officiel option.
Let me guess, soemone in a lab managed to set the seat on fire with a torch and now they need to recall before the US government as former GM owner starts another witch hunt. I bet anything there was no single actual incident. Or someaone dropped his cigarette and now figured coudl get a free seat whne he claims it was the heater that made that round hole with tabacco remains…
There probably was no incident, as stated in the story it was the component supplier that discovered the fault. They likely didn’t discover it through destructive testing of any kind. I would guess someone discovered the misapplication of material through an audit while sitting at a desk.
According to Edmunds, there have been no incidents.
LLN says the same. No incidents – no reports. The subcontractor in S. Korea notified Toyota they used “out of compliance” (my words not LLN words) that do not meet fire retardant requirements.
Toyota is being EXTREMELY proactive here. But it makes sense, if someone roasted tomorrow and they could prove Toyota knew…well you know that dance music.
These days, every automaker is proactive about this stuff. The era of the Ford Pinto is ancient history.
Still, it’s quite possible that somebody dropped the ball when reviewing the specs. In that sense, it could be indicative of a design or engineering mistake that should have been avoided.
The S Korean govt caught this in testing and their standards mirror US standards. Not a supplier. Jack should clarify that too.
They do appear to be tripping over themselves to notify NHTSA and issue the stop sale in the US.
Pretty much everyone from the compact class on up offers heated cloth seats at the very least. It’s on the luxury/premium cars that they only come with leather.
In Canada you can get heated cloth seats in the 2013 Honda Civic.
You can also get heated cloth seats in the 2014 Hyundai Accent GL… all you need is $17,874.
Oh Canada!
If only they did that with cooled seats here in Georgia!
Heated cloth seats are a good idea! Too bad Toyota’s can burn.
I like the heated front seats on my mom’s RAV4, but I hate the leather. Even if her’s did have cloth and the car was, say, a Camry, her RAV4 was built in May 2012, so she’s all good regardless.
Light ’em up, up, up…
Light ’em up, up, up…
Light ’em up, up, up…
I’m on FI…err, not sufficiently flame retardant.
Heated steering wheels are even better for some reason.
Alex (or wait was it Derek) once compared heated steering wheels to a certain type of sex/sex act that was argued before the Supreme Court to be made legal nation wide not all that long ago.
Many members of the B&B got their shorts in a knot over it.
Wait the Corolla has heated seats?
Yes I too have been amazed at the # of heated cloth seats available now. My in-laws 2009 Torrent has heated cloth and recently looking at V6 late model Avengers and 200s more seem to have heated cloth than heated leather.
I wonder if this will cause dealers to want to move these units quickly—since they’re still taking up space and are still costing them money—or if it will cause dealers to hike the prices, since customers will presumably be waiting…
this confused me earlier today when discussing it. the indication is that the _cloth_ which makes up the seat heater element is what needs to be replaced, not the cloth of the seats. and that the heating element is the same in leather or cloth seats.
article at the Freep has comment from Toyota, notes that based on data from KBB, ~26% of 2013/14 Toyota have heated seats :
http://www.freep.com/article/20140130/BUSINESS01/301300060/Toyota-recall-NHTSA-seat-fabric
this is serious money for Toyota, even if half the cars actually get the recall and it only costs them a couple of hundred bucks each to re-skin the seats after swapping out the heating elements.
Well, well. Another Toyota recall; not validating parts, not watching suppliers. And this one so simple. The fix for this one? Cooler seat heaters, as the part will surely be a resistor to cut down the heat of the existing part–the cheap way out.
read the Freep article I pasted above. the Toyota person says they are changing the heating elements, which means re-skinning the portion of the seat which has the element which doesn’t meet the flammability regs. if the regs are about the flammability of the material, it doesn’t matter if the heaters are on or not – it doesn’t meet the regs, it doesn’t meet the regs. doesn’t matter if they turn off the heaters, the cloth itself doesn’t meet the regs. as the story was developing yesterday, I made the assumption they would just reduce the power sent to the heaters, but that’s not a fix to the root problem.
After freezing my butt off all winter in the Cincinnati area, it sure is nice to enjoy my heated seats in the Impala going back-and-forth to work!
I, too, was surprised that you can get heated seats in ANY car with cloth seating areas, but I don’t go searching this stuff out, but I suppose I’ll have to in the future.
As far as Toyota is concerned, this whole debacle – if that is an accurate term, will pass, especially if no incidents have been reported to our knowledge. In any event, I sure wouldn’t want to be known as the “Man on Fire”!
“Toyota contacted us regarding the use of the word “fire” in the initial post…”
Yes, how uncouth. The industry preferred terminology is “thermal incident”.
Wasn’t Chernobyl also classified as a “thermal incident”?
A Repo Man moment. I read danio3834’s comment earlier today and I thought to myself, “well shoot, it’s not like TTAC wrote ‘goes off like a thermonuclear device\'”
Here is your reference to Chernobyl.
Sometimes you’ll think of plate of shrimp and then out of the blue someone will say shrimp, or plate, or plate of shrimp…
Noncompliant Combustion Incident
Sounds like a TV series could be made from that. How does “NCI: Butthurt Files” sound? Check your local listings.
Another tempest in a tea pot. Doesn’t affect Canada so far, according to this:
http://www.autos.ca/general-news/toyota-seat-heater-causes-sales-halt-in-us-to-continue-in-canada/2/
Also, watch “toxic hot seat” by inventor.
Toyota always mentions how their problems are the result of “a supplier.” Seems to be a frequent problem with them. When other manufacturers have issues, the brand generally takes the hit. It’s the brands responsibility to ensure the suppliers are staying compliant.
You don’t think they’ve been contracting to the lowest bidder for the decade or so? There is a reason they have led the number of recalls the last few years.
I’ll say it again. Bean counters suck. Doesn’t matter what continent they’re from – they all suck.
No they don’t, and not only has GM and their fanboys constantly thrown suppliers under the bus, they even tried to throw Toyota under the bus a few years ago when the Cobalt had a recall and the part was supplied by a parts supplier Toyota had a minor stake in. Bob Klutz proudly tried to pin it on Toyota.
Oh yes they do! The whole SUA thing was blamed on a faulty part supplier as were the mats. They even tried blaming the driver. Both Toyota and Gm are great for passing the blame.
Yes, defective or under engineered gas pedal uncovered here;
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/02/why-toyota-must-replace-flawed-cts-gas-pedal-with-superior-denso-pedal/
What will happen if driver /or front passenger unknowingly farts on heated fabric seats?