We’ve known that the Cadillac Escalade was America’s most-stolen vehicle, but we never asked why. The answer: GM didn’t put steering locks on a number of Escalade and other GMT9000 Ute model years, and shifters on these models are easily pushed out of “Park.” These weaknesses (and their ineffective fixes) allow thieves to push Tahoes, Denalis and Escalades to a safe spot where parts stripping can be done in a matter of minutes. And as the report details, Onstar is rarely effective at stopping quick snatch-and-strip-style thefts, because the damage is typically already done by the time vehicles are reported stolen. Hats off to WXYZ TV for looking past the statistics and finding the truth behind the Escaladae’s stealability. GM is reportedly working on a new steering column replacement for these vehicles.

Bloomberg reports that a lawsuit accuses Toyota of a widespread coverup of unintended acceleration in its vehicles. The suit alleges that

“Toyota technicians” confirmed that vehicles were unexpectedly accelerating and the company bought back the vehicles, had customers sign confidentiality agreements and didn’t disclose the problems to regulators… In testimony about acceleration defects before Congress, Toyota Motor Corp. didn’t disclose that the technicians had replicated instances of sudden unintended acceleration not caused by pedals or mats… The company also didn’t report the customer agreements to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration… Toyota ordered employees to remove names of executives from acceleration related e-mails and to stop using specific acceleration terms in e-mails to prevent damage to the company in litigation

Toyota’s response:

Steven Curtis, a spokesman for Toyota’s U.S. sales arm in Torrance, California, said today in an e-mail that no technicians for the company or field specialists confirmed unintended acceleration in vehicles. He said the plaintiffs’ lawyers are referring to service technicians employed by dealerships, which are independent businesses… the claims are based on anecdotes and fail to identify any specific defects in the vehicles.

Plaintiffs claim that dealer techs are “agents of the company” and that vehicle repurchases and confidentiality agreements are proof positive of a coverup. Toyota admits that it investigated and repurchased two vehicles after dealer techs found “acceleration events,” but says its factory technicians were unable to replicate any problems. If this sounds like a complicated mess of he-said-she-said, consider that this suit is just one of 300 currently pending against the world’s largest automaker. The lawyers will probably be busy with this one for decades.

Reaction to recently-released images of the updated Dodge Journey interior has been varied, but if there’s a consensus, it’s that improvement is undeniable, but that Dodge will need to update more than the interior in order to make the Journey truly competitive. And that’s the diplomatic way of putting it. One reader even wrote in (in the spirit of International Caps Lock Day) to say

I OWN A 2009 DODGE JOURNEY AND IT IS THE BIGGEST PIECE OF CRAP I HAVE EVER OWNED DODGE SHOULD BE ASHAMED TO SELL THIS KIND OF CRAP TO HARD WORKING AMERICANS I WISH I COULD DRIVE IT RIGHT THOUGH THE SHOW ROOM.

Point taken: the Journey needs to be improved. So why is Dodge selling the (as yet unimproved) crossover as “World’s Best Vehicle(?)” Sure, they’re trying to be cleverly ironic, but doesn’t it just highlight the fact that you’d need to be cross-shopping a bare metal armored car in order to think highly of the Journey? On the other hand, we’re not exactly sure how we’d sell the benighted Journey ourselves. Hit the jump for more questionable (or not?) cross-shopping, courtesy of Dodge’s too-cool-for-reality Mad Men.
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From conflict-torn Afghanistan [via Newsweek] comes this strange tale of Taliban tribute to the “the vehicular equivalent of the AK-47”: the Toyota Hilux (more famous among Western car nuts for its infamous Top Gear adventures).

What do you do when a company you own (through your trusty Treasury Department) won’t help you out over the phone? Out of luck with his dealer and pissed off at the “condescending” attitude of GM’s phone support staff, one former Marine and “lifelong GM customer” drove from Virginia to Detroit in order to get The General to take responsibility for chronic power steering pump failures in his wife’s Chevy HHR. His initial reward: more condescension, and the privilege of getting escorted from the premises of GM’s Headquarters. But Marines don’t quit that easily…

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Toyota and the families of four people who died when dealership loaner Lexus ES crashed after a reported unintended acceleration event, have settled out of court reports Bloomberg. The crash gained national attention and helped spur on the media frenzy around unintended acceleration in Toyotas. Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda had previously apologized to the family of the driver, Mark Saylor, during congressional testimony. Needless to say, Toyota is not disclosing the terms of its settlement, saying only that

Through mutual respect and cooperation we were able to resolve this matter without the need for litigation.

Considering it was a Lexus dealer who had put non-standard mats in the Saylor car, and had previously been warned that it had a sticky accelerator, Toyota’s willingness to settle seems driven more by PR considerations than liability.

Since TTAC is already “noted for dissing its mainstream competitors for cosseting carmakers,” we might as well not try to resist temptation on this one… because Car And Driver may have just outdone themselves. It starts with the one of the best headlines in ages:

10Best Surprise: Plastics Make the Chevy Volt’s Interior Possible

Surprise? Where? But in spite of the painfully unambitious headline, what follows is a symphony of strange. The ultimate point of which appears to be that C&D is absolutely thrilled about GM’s decision to make the Volt’s interior out of plastic. Yes, really.

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This is the interior of the forthcoming Fiat 500 Sport, built in Mexico for the US market [UPDATE: Fiat’s PR team insists that this is not the US-market version… we will revisit the story when real photos come out]. After the jump, you can find a photo of the Italian market Fiat 500’s interior. Spot the differences (there’s one big one we’re thinking of) and win the respect of TTAC’s Best & Brightest. Help us understand why these changes were made, and you’ll be well on your way to becoming the next TTAC comments section superstar.

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When the high Yen drove Nissan out of Japan to Thailand, and to importing their Nissan March (elsewhere known as the Micra) from the  Land of Smiles back to the Land of the Rising Sun, many thought this a daring, maybe even suicidal experiment. Will the notoriously nitpicky Nipponese buyer buy it? Or will “the first move by a Japanese carmaker to export a mainstay model to the home market,” as The Nikkei [sub] called it, be a resounding dud? Either the Japanese are changing, or Nissan pulled-off the impossible. (Read More…)

Earlier today, I noted that

Revitalizing a once-dominant domestic brand is a lot harder than telling the quality-improvement story of a once-reviled Korean value brand

and I think this video helps prove the point. For a brand like Hyundai, highlighting product details helped change perceptions… but then, Hyundai has never asked Americans to think of their cars in especially emotional, patriotic, or culturally significant ways. They’re just high value cars that have become better and better over time. For GM and Chevrolet’s new top marketing execs (freshly poached from Hyundai), the plan seems to be to follow the Hyundai “quality story” gameplan, with a little awkwardly hip flair. For a brand that’s been “the heartbeat of America,” “like a rock” and more, this latest video seems stuck in “excellence for everyone” (i.e. generic and directionless) territory.

Besides, when the word “solid” is used in marketing materials to describe a “3,100-3,300 lb” compact car, it sounds a little like a Mom calling her kid “big-boned.”

I am looking under every rock and asking the question: Is there anything wrong or unusual about our pedals? We are continuing to look to see if there is something that we could do differently.

Toyota’s Steve St. Angelo tells the WSJ [sub] that Toyota is reviewing its pedal designs in search of a cause for its recent Unintended Acceleration scandal. Thus far, Toyota’s UA issues have been traced only to sticky pedals and floormat interference. Attempts to trace UA to malfunctioning throttle units have thus far been abortive, with a government research panel finding that brake misapplication occurred in many of the Toyota UA incidents.

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Thanks in part to help from TTAC readers, TrueDelta received a record number of responses to last month’s Car Reliability Survey—nearly 18,000. Updated car reliability stats have been posted to the site for 458 cars, up from 404 three month ago. There are partial results for another 351.

These stats cover through the end of June. Other sources of car reliability information will not cover the most recent months until the summer or even fall of next year.

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This isn’t so much a news item as a “Congress finally figured it out” item. A preliminary report by the National Research Council, recently revealed to congress, shows that of 58 Toyota “black box” event data recorders from crashes which occurred during the recall scandal

35 showed that at the moment of impact, the driver hadn’t depressed the brake pedal at all. Fourteen more showed partial braking, while nine showed the brake depressed at the “last second” before the crash.

There were a handful of other results where the brake was pressed early and let go, or in which both the gas and brake pedals were pressed at the same time. There also was one case of pedal entrapment by a floor mat.

In five cases, the electronic recording device failed to work.

The WSJ [sub] notes that the investigation is ongoing, and that no official conclusions have been drawn, but that the finding vindicates an earlier report for which the WSJ had taken mysterious flack. For a complete look at the NRC-NHTSA study, and why it is highly unlikely to ever find a “ghost in the machine” in Toyota’s electronic throttles, check out TTAC’s review of the pre-study NHTSA-NRC presentation.

This week’s “Haggler” column in the Sunday New York Times was ripped from the pages of TTAC’s beloved Piston Slap series, with a Wendy Marek writing in to complain that

In July 2008, I made a huge mistake: I bought a Ford Explorer. It was a 2006 model with 40,000 miles, and it cost $17,000. At first I thought I got a great deal, but after a few weeks of driving, the radiator started leaking. Then the replacement radiator started leaking. Then the radiator that replaced the replacement started leaking. To date, six new radiators have been installed in this vehicle. Six.

After some research, The Haggler found that both carcomplaints.com and Consumer Reports showed a record of radiator problems in 2006 Explorers. Furthermore, Ford issued a TSB on 2006 Explorer radiators in 2009, which the automaker insists covers its liability. Since the Explorer in question is a used car, Ms Marek’s only real recourse would have been to file a breach of warranty claim, but the statue of limitations had already run out. Since so few protections exist for used-car buyers, one has to assume that the moral of the story is that buying used Explorers is a risky business… but is that the truth? Or is the outgoing Explorer a good value that’s getting a bum rap?