The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will have to wait two more weeks to gets its claws into Toyota, as heavy weather has postponed hearings scheduled for today until the 24th. But don’t expect the delay take any of the pressure of Toyota: lawmakers are taking the extra time to widen their investigations. Automotive News [sub] reports that House Energy Committee Chair Rep Henry Waxman (D-CA) has solicited documents from a number of auto insurers after it was revealed that State Farm had warned the NHTSA of possible unintended acceleration in Toyotas as early as 2007. The Energy Committee has scheduled hearings for the 25th.

Meanwhile, Reuters has published one of the most comprehensive pieces we’ve seen yet on Toyota’s “epic breakdown.” Don’t miss it.

Reuters reports that Toyota has informed the NHTSA that it will voluntarily recall over 7,000 2010 Camry four-cylinder models. According to a Toyota document sent to dealers:

2010 Camrys equipped with a 4-cylinder engine might have a shorter-than-required power steering pressure hose in the engine compartment. That could deplete the brake fluid, increasing the brake pedal stroke and making it more difficult and requiring more time to stop the vehicle

For the record, Ford would have just called this a “Customer Satisfaction Program.”

Toyota heads up to Capital Hill tomorrow to face the ire of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in a hearing that’s been subtly named “Toyota Gas Pedals: Is the Public at Risk?” A memo by committee staff [via the WSJ] sets a paranoid tone for the hearing, as the NHTSA investigation widens beyond gas pedals alone:

Attention is now being focused on the electronic throttle control system (ETC) to determine whether sudden acceleration may be attributable to a software design problem or perhaps to electromagnetic interference. The committee staff found numerous complaints made to NHTSA describing sudden acceleration that was not caused by either floor mats or sticky pedals.

Toyota’s Yoshi Inaba will face the brunt of the questioning, although Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and NHTSA administrator David Strickland will surely face questions about their oversight of Toyota (or lack thereof).

(Read More…)

State Farm, the US’ largest automotive insurance company, began warning federal regulators in 2007 about unintended acceleration in Toyotas, the
Washington Post reports. Yet the National Highway Traffic Safety did not begin to act for more than a year after State Farm’s initial alerts. This
revelation follows by more than a decade the insurer’s warnings about Ford Explorer rollovers, which the Post reports led to a congressional
investigation, and legislation that “created an “early warning” system for auto safety.” But NHTSA apparently hasn’t been paying attention to the information it has collected. Randy Whitfield, a Maryland consultant, using data from NHTSA, two years ago determined that the 2007 Toyota Camry and Lexus ES 350 had excess injuries due to unexpected acceleration. State Farm insures more than 40 million customers.

As the search for clues to what went wrong with Toyota’s much-vaunted quality rolls on, Automotive News [sub] has discovered that Toyota discontinued top-level quality-focused meetings shortly after Akio Toyoda took over early last year. The “Customer First” quality meetings were instituted under Toyoda’s predecessor Katsuake Watanabe as a response to Toyota’s 2005 recalls. A Toyota executive involved with quality decisions at the time tells AN [sub] that the Watanabe-headed committee simply disappeared over time:

We saw that the whole company and each division understood what they need to do in terms of Customer First operation. It became a daily activity rather than a special activity. So they didn’t need an executive to instruct them. Because Customer First is something like a philosophy, Customer First activities themselves are continuing. But we don’t have an official organization like a committee.

Ironically, Toyoda used the term “Customer First” repeatedly in his comments to the Japanese press last week. How he squares that emphasis with the decision to cut an executive-level committee named for that phrase remains very much to be seen. Meanwhile, his motivations for cutting the program couldn’t be more obvious, as the slow-and-safe approach added months to vehicle development time.

If there’s one certainty in the car business, it’s that you know a company is in trouble when their ads forgo showing off their latest models in favor of gauzy images of beloved products past. It’s a trick that the Detroit firms have played to death over their 30 years of decline, and now Toyota is dipping a toe in the soothing waters of nostalgia. For contrast, check out Hyundai’s “more-Toyota-than-Toyota” Super Bowl spot after the jump.
(Read More…)

Ford says emphatically no, but the evidence (such as it is) indicates certain similarities. Let’s take a look…

(Read More…)

TTAC has reported on VW’s plans to become the global number one. Looking at Toyota’s current quality problems, one could be excused for thinking that there just might be some substance to Wolfsburg’s plans. After all, Toyota’s days of glory seem to be over, while VW is on a roll, with sales growing and quality improving. Right?

(Read More…)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

LaHood may struggle with some of the technical details (like, you know, how to actually stop unintended acceleration), but he’s got the politics down pat. The gameplan in these kinds of situations is simple: scare the public, shame the automaker, and say lots of things that make it sound like you’re taking charge. Like threatening Toyota with the maximum allowable $16.4m in civil penalty fines [per the Detroit News], potentially shattering the previous recall fine record of $1m set by GM in 2004 for its handling of a windshield wiper recall. The fact that all this makes the government’s “investments” in the auto industry look a little better is just the gravy on top. [UPDATE: Reuters reports that LaHood meant to say that “owners concerned about unintended acceleration should instead seek out dealers for advice and necessary repairs.” You know, instead of implying that all Toyotas are fundamentally dangerous. “What I said in there was a misstatement,” confessed LaHood. [Hat Tip: commenter Fonzy]

One of the lingering concerns over the Toyota recall is whether Toyota’s “precision steel” shim fix to the recalled CTS gas pedal assembly will be a reliable long-term solution. Our analysis indicates that these questions might be well-founded, and we’re not the only ones concerned about the viability of Toyota’s proposed fix. In an interview with Toyota’s Jim Lentz yesterday evening, NPR asked why Toyota was using a redesigned pedal for new production, but only offering the shim fix to existing customers. Lentz insisted that the repaired pedals would be as good as the redesigned pedal, that the costs of repair and replacement were about the same, and that the main reason Toyota was repairing rather than replacing recalled pedals was the desire to “get customers back on the road… as quickly as we possibly can.” That’s when NPR went for the jugular.

(Read More…)

Say what? GM has no problem kicking Toyota when its down, offering conquest cash to craven Toyota owners who might be tempted to flee the brand in the midst of recall mania, but its own handling of the situation deserves some analysis. After all, GM confirms that its Pontiac Vibe is assembled at the GM-Toyota NUMMI joint venture using the CTS-sourced pedal assembly that allegedly causes unintended acceleration. And yet The General went on the record last Friday [via Automotive News [sub]] essentially claiming that its Toyota Matrix rebadge was magically safe from the dread terrors afflicting its Toyota-badged cousin. Now GM has revised its statement on the Vibe, admitting that since the Toyota recall, it has received several complaints about sticking accelerators on Vibes (although no related wrecks have been reported). Better late than never… unless you’re making the pitch that consumers should choose you over Toyota because you will take better care of them. [UPDATE: GM reports that the Vibe’s brakes can stop the vehicle. Go figure]

(Read More…)

Kudos to Edmunds Inside Line for throwing up pictures of two Toyota gas pedal assemblies. The recalled unit, made by CTS, is shown above in a 2010 Camry. The non-recalled Denso-produced unit is after the jump.

(Read More…)

Toyota’s recall of 2m vehicles in Europe isn’t doing much to clarify the chaos surrounding the unintended acceleration panic that is enveloping the company. Eight models are being removed from Europe’s roads, including Auris, Avensis, Aygo, Corolla, iQ, RAV4, Verso and Yaris. The fact that two of these models (iQ and RAV4) are built exclusively in Japan (European Corollas are built in Japan and South Africa), seems to suggest that the problem is not limited to gas pedal assemblies supplied by CTS, which has been blamed for the US recall. The other models are built in France (Yaris), Turkey (Auris, Verso), the Czech Republic (Aygo) and the UK (Avensis, Auris). According to Automotive News [sub], the recall affects these models built between Feb. 2005 and this month, even though

Toyota lengthened the arm of the friction lever and changed its materials on all vehicles produced in Europe using the subject accelerator pedals starting in mid-August 2009

Curiouser and curiouser…

The ongoing kerfluffle over Toyota’s recall of over 2m vehicles for a gas pedal defect which (allegedly) caused unintended acceleration has caught much of the automotive media flat-footed. How could it be, many have wondered, that the automaker most associated in the US market with the concept of quality has slipped so badly? As TTAC’s Steve Lang recently discussed, Toyota has been on a decontenting binge since the mid-to-late-1990s, putting profit above the quality obsession that had defined its operations up to that point. As a result, the current generation of decontented Toyotas and accompanying quality issues and recalls can be seen as the culmination of a long-term trend. But why did that transition take place? Though it’s easy to blame greed and mismanagement for the decline in Toyota’s quality, the decline in standards was actually a natural progression of Toyota’s constantly-evolving, efficiency-obsessed production system.

(Read More…)

Here is a round-up of the Toyota news that is flowing furiously out of all news outlets. Everybody, from the Wall Street Journal to Al Jazeera weighs in on the issue. Grab a cup of coffee. Or something stronger.

More recalls: Toyota announced late Wednesday that it must recall another 1.1 million vehicles “to address the risk that floor mats could trap accelerator pedals and cause bursts of sudden acceleration,” says Reuters. According to Reuters, “Toyota now has recalled nearly 6m vehicles for problems with the accelerators used across its lineup.” This is not counting the 2m vehicles in Europe that will be recalled.

EU recall official: Toyota Motor said today that it definitely will be expanding the recall to Europe, says AFP via Google. “Toyota will implement a recall in Europe,” said company spokesman Paul Nolasco. “We are still not sure about the models and the number of vehicles.” Initial estimates, published by The Nikkei [sub], spoke about another 2m cars in Europe. Plants will not be closed in Europe, because different parts already are being used in new production.

Recall spreads to China: China’s quality watchdog agency said “bu hao” to Toyota and ordered  the  recall of “at least 75,000 vehicles  in China,” says London’s Times. (Read More…)