Toyota to recall 3.8M vehicles over floor mats

[JCE]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090929/ap_on_bi_ge/us_toyota_floor_mats

WASHINGTON – Toyota says it will recall 3.8 million vehicles in the United States to address problems with a removable floor mat that could interfere with the vehicle's accelerator and cause a crash. The company says it will be the largest recall in its history. Owners could learn about the safety campaign as early as next week.

Toyota and the government warned owners of Toyota and Lexus vehicles about safety problems tied to the removable floor mats. They say the mats could interfere with the vehicle's accelerator and cause a crash.

The recall will affect 2007-2010 model year Toyota Camry, 2005-2010 Toyota Avalon, 2004-2009 Toyota Prius, 2005-2010 Tacoma, 2007-2010 Toyota Tundra, 2007-2010 Lexus ES350 and 2006-2010 Lexus IS250 and IS350.

Owners should take out the floor mats on the driver's side and not replace them.

Toyota's previously largest recall was about 900,000 vehicles in 2005 to fix a steering issue.

Toyota reliability.

 

[Tornado]

Wait, recalling a vehicle over a floor mat? Why? Isn't this statement

Owners should take out the floor mats on the driver's side and not replace them.

Enough?

















Seriously, floormats?

 

[JCE]

I know I chuckled when I read that. I mean, FLOORMATS.

 

[buickgnx88]

Here's going to be their solution for the problem:

 

[LSX]

Yeah, it makes sense. When I worked at a car wash, the Lexus and other cars like that, Avalons in particular usually had THICK rubber mats that were on top of thick carpet mats. Never made any sense to me, just use the rubber ones and you won't get anything dirty, you can't see the cloth ones anyways. I can see the heavy rubber mats which were close to the bottom of the accelerator pushing it down if slid to far forward. As I remember, the cloth mats are held in place by clips or hooks. So I can't really see those moving. The rubber ones were the premium mats you can add on, seemed like everyone that came there with a Toyota, Lexus or Mercedes had them or something similar.

 

[Jim Prower]

What bugs me is that Toyota's afraid that someone'd sue over a floormat.

 

[TheBook]

What bugs me is that Toyota's afraid that someone'd sue over a floormat.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone did...

 

[Azuremen]

Now I know why this topic seemed familar... older recall from a couple years back

Still, fairly amusing. Also, I can very easily see someone trying to sue Toyota if they cause a wreck speeding and want to blame it on something besides themselves.

 

[McLaren]

Yahoo isn't reporting the full story behind this. Toyota seems believes the accident below could have been caused by the floor mats.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32607042

http://jalopnik.com/5370486/feds-re...to-potential-for-fiery-death?skyline=true&s=x

The U.S. Government warns 3.8 million Toyota and Lexus owners affected by an urgent recall to "immediately remove driver's side floor mats" after one was suspected of causing a fiery Lexus crash killing a family of four in San Diego.

Toyota says it will order an immediate floor mat recall at the behest of the Department of Transportation after a mat was suspected of snagging a gas pedal on a runaway Lexus, ending with a fiery crash that killed four family members in San Diego. The Toyota and Lexus models affected include:

f, for some reason you're unable to pull the mat out of the driver's side of your car and you experience "unintended acceleration" you are to immediately "pull back floor mat. If that doesn't work, stand on brake pedal with both feet." Seriously.

I don't believe it's a direct cause, but looks like Toyota will be using it as such.

 

[a6m5]

Yeah, it makes sense. When I worked at a car wash, the Lexus and other cars like that, Avalons in particular usually had THICK rubber mats that were on top of thick carpet mats. Never made any sense to me, just use the rubber ones and you won't get anything dirty, you can't see the cloth ones anyways. I can see the heavy rubber mats which were close to the bottom of the accelerator pushing it down if slid to far forward. As I remember, the cloth mats are held in place by clips or hooks. So I can't really see those moving. The rubber ones were the premium mats you can add on, seemed like everyone that came there with a Toyota, Lexus or Mercedes had them or something similar.

I'm pretty sure most manufacturers don't want all-weather mats placed on top of the carpet mats. That is pretty crazy.

 

[Tornado]

Yeah, it makes sense. When I worked at a car wash, the Lexus and other cars like that, Avalons in particular usually had THICK rubber mats that were on top of thick carpet mats. Never made any sense to me, just use the rubber ones and you won't get anything dirty, you can't see the cloth ones anyways. I can see the heavy rubber mats which were close to the bottom of the accelerator pushing it down if slid to far forward. As I remember, the cloth mats are held in place by clips or hooks. So I can't really see those moving. The rubber ones were the premium mats you can add on, seemed like everyone that came there with a Toyota, Lexus or Mercedes had them or something similar.

My Grandpa has a set of those with his name on them in his Lexus that date back to his 1990 Brougham d'Elegance. I think I'll warn him about it tomorrow. Thanks for the explanation.

 

[Philly]

I remember the "unintended acceleration" thing from a while ago. Which I thought was funny because Toyotas aren't exactly known for their acceleration abilities to begin with...

 

[homeforsummer]

Here's the other thing: Aren't there umpteen things you can do even if your car suffers floormat-related acceleration? The Lexus in San Diego quote above makes it sound like they were doomed by their car hurtling out of control at full throttle, when there's no car in the world where full-throttle acceleration could overcome just standing hard on the brakes (also mentioned in the quote). Or, y'know, knocking it into neutral. I'd rather the engine go boom than send me off the road at top speed into a tree.

Don't Volkswagens have a failsafe in that you can't use the brake and accelerator at the same time? I seem to remember reading somewhere that when you touch the brake with some throttle still on, it cuts the throttle completely (meaning left-foot braking is out of the question). Sure, it's a pain in the ass for performance drivers but I suspect it could be a good safety measure/failsafe for the average Joe.

 

[Tornado]

I don't think Toyota wants to risk it. "Unintended Acceleration" is still a reputation-destroying buzzword in America, and I wouldn't surprised if VW has a failsafe specifically for that reason.

 

[homeforsummer]

I don't think Toyota wants to risk it. "Unintended Acceleration" is still a reputation-destroying buzzword in America, and I wouldn't surprised if VW has a failsafe specifically for that reason.

I suspect driver education on the matter might be helpful too though. We are talking about the place where a woman tried to sue a motorhome company because she put the cruise control on and went into the back to make some coffee. Unsurprisingly it promptly crashed, and she tried to sue because the handbook didn't specifically state that cruise control didn't drive the RV itself...

I can see "not braking when your throttle sticks open" being of a similar school of thought, given that most peoples' panic instinct is to brake in any dangerous situation. I'm not saying that mats that accidentally press the throttle aren't a bad idea and worthy of a recall, but if people start flying off the road because of it you have to wonder about their general level of suitability to be driving.

 

[SRinc.]

What bugs me is that Toyota's afraid that someone'd sue over a floormat.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone did...

If someone can sue McDonalds because their coffee was 'too hot' and then yea Toyota can get sued for floor mats as dumb as it sounds. My mother has a 2009 Camry and was freaking out LoL, I don't know if she knows its just over floor mats though .

 

[Tornado]

I suspect driver education on the matter might be helpful too though.

Hold your tongue good sir! This is America! If I was to do evasive maneuvers with the specific intent of rolling my Suzuki Samurai, and the result is a rollover, it is clearly Suzuki's fault. If I didn't learn how to drive stick so I press the gas pedal instead of the brake and crash my Audi 5000, it is Audi's fault. If I wrap my Corvaire around a tree because I drove it like it was a Camaro when in fact the engine is very much at the other end of the car, it is GM's fault.

 

[homeforsummer]

Of course, silly me.

 

[SR-71_Blackbird]

Actually the recall is because of a wreck.
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local-beat/Deadly-Accident-Prompts-Floor-Mat-Warning-59394687.html
Thing is my dad told me a story where he once floored his car a long time ago and when he went to lift the throtle stayed down. He put it in neutral and turned it off while rolling. Turned out the floor mat slipped forward and got the throtle stuck.

 

[Eric.]

I'm guessing its a matter of making sure that the floor mat is changed, but couldn't Toyota just send out a letter to everyone saying to remove that floor mat and either ship a modified replacement or ask them to come by to pick it up? (I guess the latter is what will actually be done...)

 

[Omnis]

My Hyundai's floor mat clip is attached to the floor carpet and seemingly nothing else. I'd love to meet the korean who engineered that and show him how the floor mat pulled up the carpet and epic-failed his design.

 

[yeti]

I think that this is a good thing from Toyota...

Renault are still refusing to recall a raft of Clios that are fitted with dodgy bonnet catches - which can result in your bonnet opening at 60MPH...

C.

 

[Azuremen]

My Hyundai's floor mat clip is attached to the floor carpet and seemingly nothing else. I'd love to meet the korean who engineered that and show him how the floor mat pulled up the carpet and epic-failed his design.

Yeah, the MR-S was like that as well. I had to cut the damn clip to get the mat out so I could clean it.

 

[Jim Prower]

Shifting into neutral and letting the engine bang against the rev limiter until you get to the shoulder's a good idea...stomping on the brakes with both feet doesn't work. The Nova's brakes won't hold it in place at WFO throttle. On a FWD car, it also locks (or attempts to) the rear tires, increasing the chance that a car would careen out of control...

Now, on my car, which hasn't a rev limiter, I'd be looking for a 4A-GE...or a new car. better than looking for a new body...

It'd sound really great for about five seconds, though. ;3

 

[buickgnx88]

Well I'm sure that most of the cars affected have some form of ABS, not to mention they are plenty newer than your Nova and thus would have better brakes.

 

[Jim Prower]

Well, you're also calling for some serious brake fade, especially if the car's moving.

 

[Pupik]

I don't get it; the clips should be enough, but some dumb owners I'd meet couldn't be bothered to install them properly, inspect them occasionally, or get the car washer to re-install them. I'd see lots of owners with mats jammed against the pedals, but not underneath the pedals so as to affect the accelerator pedal issue.

Other people would buy some mats and place them right over the original mats because they were so worried about dirtying them...despite the fact there's a warning on both products letting you know not to use both mats at the same time to prevent a slipping mat. When the rubber mats are installed, the strip of rubber/plastic holding the mats together in the package is discarded. The warning (as I recall) was also on the back of the mat.

It's hard to tell exactly if this was all brought about by this unfortunate singular incident; a national recall never stems from a one-off-incident, unless it was a known issue that was reported many times, but never resolved (or if no cause can be determined).

Lexus had a issue with brake light switches and Canadian-built power brake boosters on their RX 330s in mid/late-2004 and it wasn't resolved until January of 2005. Owners were annoyed, but we had a fix for them. It wasn't until a few newspapers (The Wall Street Journal ran with it!) and TV segments aired op-eds six months later which rehashed this info (owners already had the recall information, most took care of the issue in 3-6 months) that really made the owners steamed up: Lexus doesn't want to fix your unsafe car was the tone of these articles. Now every jackass that had a brake pulsation from normal wear or needed a brake fluid line bled because the car had 60,000 miles on it was arrogant to us for the next few months.

There are some things you never want to see manufactured, for fear of disgust: Sausage and News.

Toyota has also been traveling the "throttle by wire" route since about 2002, so a brake impulse or change in drive gear or drive mode should cancel it out; even neutral cuts the fuel supply on its modern cars. I can confirm that from my test driving of customer cars, and occasional hammering of loaners.

Maybe this was all caused by it, maybe it wasn't. I'm just glad I don't work at Lexus anymore; because now every bugger with an ES 250 is going to want free mats.

 

[Joey D]

Other people would buy some mats and place them right over the original mats because they were so worried about dirtying them...despite the fact there's a warning on both products letting you know not to use both mats at the same time to prevent a slipping mat.

Isn't the whole point of floor is to collect dirt and protect the car's carpeting? People are strange.

 

[wfooshee]

I'm with homeforsummer on this. The folks in that vehicle are dead because the driver was stupid. There's a shifter, and there's a key. It's no big deal to turn the damn thing off and coast to the shoulder. I've had to do it myself.

Instead he calls 911. i.e. used a cell phone while driving, totally panicked.

Oh, yeah, there's brakes, too. There is no modern vehicle whose brakes are not stronger than the engine, even at full throttle. Just compare braking distances with acceleration distances in any road test. Brakes are stronger.

And to force Toyota to recall millions of cars because one guy was stupid is even stupider.

But that's America! Instead of teaching people how to use heavy equipment properly, we blame the heavy equipment for failures in operator judgment.

 

[Philly]

Well, you're also calling for some serious brake fade, especially if the car's moving.

I recall my drivers' ed class instructing us to try and get your foot under the accelerator to pull it back up if it is safe to do so. I'm guessing a floor mat pressing the throttle down would be easily countered by doing this.

Which also makes me wonder: how light is the throttle in a Toyota? In the GTI, a floor mat out of position would have no chance of pressing the throttle down. At least not enough to cause the vehicle to go accelerating out of control. Even the all weather floor mats, I'm sure. Or maybe if the gas pedal is some sort of first-class lever that could possibly keep the throttly open if something gets jammed under the front part of it or something.

If that's the case, then there is a major flaw in Toyota's throttle design. That's recall worthy. But I can't imagine any other way that anybody that isn't a complete idiot could possibly get into a bad accident because of the floor mats.

And to force Toyota to recall millions of cars because one guy was stupid is even stupider.

But that's America! Instead of teaching people how to use heavy equipment properly, we blame the heavy equipment for failures in operator judgment.

The intelligence of my fellow countrymen never ceases to amaze me. I say the courts should have an option to take people's licenses away if their suing over something that boils down to the improper operation of the vehicle.

Granted, it is kinda hard to speak for some of the Toyota drivers. People who buy Camrys and the like seem to be the people who have zero desirability to ever be driving. And if you don't want to be driving in the first place, I'm guessing that it becomes much more difficult to react properly to a situation like this.