From the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles~ http://www.flhsmv.gov/ToyRecall.pdf Actions Consumers Can Take If They Cannot Stop Their Vehicle. Regardless of the cause, if a consumer is experiencing unintended acceleration in their vehicle, they should take the following steps:
Brake firmly and steadily - do not pump the brake pedal
Shift the transmission into Neutral (for vehicles with automatic transmissions and the sport option, familiarize yourself with where Neutral is - the diagram may be misleading)
Steer to a safe location
Shut the engine off (for vehicles with keyless ignition, familiarize yourself with how to turn the vehicle off when it is moving - this may be a different action than turning the vehicle off when it is stationary).
Call your dealer or repair shop to pick up the vehicle. Do not drive it.
For more information, consumers can contact the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Hotline at 888-327-4236 or the Toyota Experience Center at 1-800-331-4331 or the Lexus Customer Assistance Center at 1-800-255-3987. Information from Toyota is also posted at http://www.toyota.com and http://www.lexus.com.
David Champion, Consumer Reports' senior director of automotive testing, spoke to Harry Smith about Toyota's plan to fix it's huge recall for sticky gas pedals and problematic floor mats.
Up Front, Toyota is running TV ads vowing to win back customers' trust. But behind the scenes, the besieged carmaker is trying to influence the congressional investigations, and maybe even control them if they can.
It's part of an ploy by the world's biggest auto manufacturer to redeem its reputation~ hit anew on Tuesday as Toyota's global recall surpassed 8.5 million cars and trucks. The day's safety recall of 440,000 of the Prius and other hybrids, plus a Tokyo news conference where the company's president read a statement in English hoping to "regain the confidence of our customers," underscoring his determination to keep buyers' faith from sinking to unrecoverable depths.
Facing congressional inquiries & government safety investigations, Toyota through its lawyers and lobbyists is working to salvage its reputation. The confidential strategy includes efforts to sway upcoming hearings on Capitol Hill. Lobbyists have helped by companies that have survived similar consumer and political crises ~ and those that haven't. Toyota will say little publicly about its efforts to stop the bleeding.
Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich, said Toyota representatives visited his offices seeking to learn all they could.
"They're probing us. 'What are you going to ask us, where are you going with this whole thing?'" said Stupak, who is chairman of a House subcommittee looking into Toyota's problems.
Toyota spending more than $4 million on lobbying last year, declined to discuss details.The company has hired additional lobbyists, lawyers and public relations experts to influence regulators and lawmakers collaboratively towards a successful recall effort, ensuring proper, diligent compliance according to their press release.
As carmakers crunch their January sales & release the figures this week, Wall Street analysts will be anaylzing them to see how badly Toyota has been hurt by its massive accelerator recall & identifying exactly who will benefit most. It is not an easy call. Wall Street feels that Ford could pick up a lot of customers because of Toyota's problems. While Ford has been the subject of enormously favorable news stories, ranging from vehicle awards to headlines for not taking a bailout — we are the only U.S. automaker to report a profit in the past several years.
But people at Goldman Sachs suggests that while Ford will continue to gain market share this year, Toyota won't affect us much. They see Chrysler and GM as being the largest source of share gains while expecting modest gains against foreign brands.
"What comes around goes around" as my old fishin' buddies used to say. When we had a recall involving tires on our Explorers, Toyota was the loudest in exploiting it to make sales. Now it's happened to Toyota in a much more serious manner and to be honest both Ford an GM have been fairly sympathetic to their plight. After all, the people endangered by Toyota's action or lack of it are all future potential customers of ours.
My friends and customers have been discussing it openly and though I am biased there are some valid points. First Toyota blamed it on the floor mats~ then they found cars that had the floormats in the trunk. Now they are blaming the gas pedal and hope to fix it with a chunk of metal bolted to the inside of the firewall. CTS has emphatically stated that their product did not cause the runaway acceleration experienced by about 2000 drivers. I was giving Toyota the benefit of the doubt until they started recalling cars in Europe & Asia that don't have CTS parts installed. I sincerely hope this shim solves the problem. But I have my doubts as even if the accelerator were slammed against the floor and stuck someone like the California Highway Patrolman should have enough strength to get his shoe under it and free it. Or put both feet on the brakes and slow it down. Not die with 3 family members in a Lexus 350 while talking to 911.
I stated when I first heard about it that I suspected the PCM computer. My reasoning is that American emissions and safety standards are much stricter so the tolerances of the computer programs are much closer. A computer program also runs your cruise control. A car is basically a hostile environment for a computer. Americans have always been way ahead of the curve in inventions and technology while others exploit our knowledge for their own agenda. Computers crash all the time at home & work and it's hard to duplicate why sometimes. If the brakes and gas pedal mechanism all froze the computer could still cause the engine to run at top speed. Similar to the dieseling my VW Rabbit did. Every once in a while it would just run away from me in a cloud of black smoke and I would have to kill the engine and coast to the side of the road. Naturally I freaked the first time. But after that I always mapped escape routes as I drove. I was fortunate that it never happened in traffic but only when I was cruising in the country. Not having a VW dealer close by, I asked many garages if they had heard about it and could they fix it. They were all willing to work on it for big bucks but I parked it instead.
Talk around the customer service lounge is that it's related to the cruise control in some way. Steve Woz @ Apple is experiencing major problems with his Prius and blogging about it. Congress is investigating and Toyota is trying to stop the bleeding. Meanwhile Ford is staying the course to produce safer and more fuel efficient vehicles without aid from the Government. I'll continue to blog about this as it unfolds and add links and videos so that you know it isn't just my opinion driving this blog.
$1,000 Trade-In Assistance Cash from Ford of Ocala~
Friday, January 29, 2010
$1,000 Trade-In Assistance Cash Ford of Ocala is excited to announce an incremental cash & incentive enhancement effective, January 28, 2010. Ford Motor Company is providing a $1,000 trade-in assistance on 1995 or newer Toyota, Honda, Lexus, Scion and Acura customers with a trade-in or expiring lease. All 2010 Ford model year vehicles (retail or lease) are eligible. Consumers are required to trade-in their current vehicle or have a lease expiring by June 30, 2010. This offer can be transferred to individuals residing in the same household. Please see your sales consultant for complete details. Ford continues to gain momentum in the marketplace will all the positive press centered around the Drive One pillars- Quality, Green, Safe & Smart. Ford vehicles continue to be recognized for unsurpassed quality, safety and industry leading technology. Thank you to all of our loyal Ford of Ocala customers for helping us achieve these high marks.
