Runaway Toyota cases ignored

[Chuck]

"I stood on the brakes with both feet. All of a sudden, I see fire. I thought, sure, my brakes are on fire. I thought about maybe trying to sideswipe a tree to slow down." - Prius driver.

By Ken Bensinger and Ralph Vartabedian - LATIMES - Nov 8, 2009

No resolution, yet --Ed.

More than 1,000 Toyota and Lexus owners have reported since 2001 that their vehicles suddenly accelerated on their own, in many cases slamming into trees, parked cars and brick walls, among other obstacles, a Times review of federal records has found.

The crashes resulted in at least 19 deaths and scores of injuries over the last decade, records show. Federal regulators say that is far more than any other automaker has experienced.... [Read More]

[ALS]

In 2004, the NHTSA began a probe into a defect petition filed by Carol J. Mathews, a registered nurse who was then director of health services for the Montgomery County, Md., school system.

Matthews reported that she had her foot on the brake of her 2002 Lexus ES when it took off and hit a tree.

Is there something we are missing here?

What car company would allow this to continue with out spending a small fortune to find the cause and fix it as soon as possible. Funny this has been going on since 2001 and no one can put there finger on the problem.

To blow this off a company would be looking at court judgements in the 10's to 100's of millions per case. I'm sorry no company as successful as Toyota is going to cover up something like this for over eight years.

If this only was occurring on one or two years of vehicles then I would say maybe something is going on and Toyota is trying to sweep it under the rug. But come on guys eight or nine years and it still happening, see highlighted section above.

[JusBringIt]

This happened with my dad's mitsu galant...






















oh yeah, he was teaching my aunt how to drive..ask the owner of the grand caravan what happens when an inexperienced or underperforming driver gets behind the wheel.

[worthywads]

The brakes did not release the cruise control or slow down the vehicle, Smith recalled. Finally, he shifted into neutral and shut off the engine. "I am sure it is the cruise control," he said. "I haven't used it since."

Fortunately at least one person didn't totally panic. Anyone that's ever Fased wouldn't end up off a cliff.

[drimportracing]

Now I not only have to be aware of bad drivers in general I have to protect myself from the unsuspecting out of control Toyota too.

There has to be some bad lobbying going on to keep the NTHSA from getting this taken care of. I expected better from Toyota as a company. Faulty/malfunctioning components in cars are more common than most people think but something as unsafe as this is unusual and should be handled with the utmost importance.

Has anyone here ever had this happen to them? - Dale

[worthywads]

No one on my toyota truck forum has seen it, some have complained about a low speed surge and surging while at a stop light. These seems to be strictly automatics and may be due to slightly low transmission fluid. Now that they have removed the auto tranny dipstick from the vehicle it is not easy to check, what a terrible improvement.

[98CRV]

Revisiting the Audi 5000? Nearly destroyed the company.

[Chuck]

Aliens caused it.