Toyota Out to Restore Confidence

I like to be fair.  On Wednesdays.

Toyota has been hammered by everyone with a keyboard, maybe serenaded by some, but not that I've heard.  All over this business of unintended acceleration.

CEO-San Toyoda (sic) is adamant that Toyota's electronic accelerators are not at fault, but to restore confidence in the brands, Toyota would install brake-override systems in all new cars.  Not old cars.  Those have been sold already and can't be affected by lack of confidence.  The override will shut off the accelerator if it senses that both the accelerator and brake are being pushed at the same time.

Two-footed drives can sit out rush hour.  And the rest of the day.

The Corolla problem is different.  Drivers seem to feel that they are losing control of the steering, but that is not a major issue since the Corolla does not have Prius brakes.  Note, too, that the drivers only feel that they are losing control, not actually losing it.  Until the car hits a fire hydrant just like Tiger Woods.  Then, they are actually losing it.  But maybe Mr. Toyoda does not get the idiom.

To restore your confidence, Mr. Toyoda promises to cooperate with anyone who asks in solving any real or perceived problems.  Except for the electronic throttle and its unattached pedal.  Don't worry, he knows those are just fine.  Maybe you should shoot Mr. Toyoda a big thumbs up as your Camry flies unintendedly into a second story office window.

Mr. Toyoda did indicate that he and his executive team back home cared more about his drive for market share than your drive through the market itself, but that's over with for now.  If only because he's got a dive for market share right now.

Still, apologies all around and, you out there in Toyotas, Lexus's, Prius's and Scions, please feel safe.

Toyota Lexus Correction

According to a Toyota PR flack, the accelerator pedals of the Lexus ES or IS models from Toyota are not really a problem.  Toyota maintains that it only royally screwed up the design of their floor mats.

Huh?

You might well, if inarticulately, ask.

Toyota has not come out openly on this, but it is believed that Toyota designed and built floor mats out of living material.  That's right: Living Floor Mats.

These Living Floor Mats thrive on crumbs from HoHo's and Caesar Chicken Wraps, consuming most of the latte you spill on top of them.  The original Living Floor Mats hated coffee and would spit it back at Toyota engineers, so a too-hasty redesign took place before the cars hit the streets.  And bridge piers.

Living Floor Mats are sedentary creatures, but a few mutants are known--now--to creep at the rate of one nano-inch per hour toward perfectly fine Lexus accelerator pedals.  The attraction is not clear, but it is probably something about scratching the Living Floor Mats back really sweetly.

Mind you, Living Floor Mats are used in the passenger footwell, too.  They are suspected of creeping forward and toward the foot-cooling/warming air vents.  No suffocations have been reported, except in cases when a Lexus flew off a bridge into a bay and that was more because of the water.

Toyota suggests putting the Living Floor Mats in you trunk.  Basically, this is a good idea, but don't expect all of them to stay there.  It is not their natural habitat and even a non-mutant Living Floor Mat may become restless and creep (their only means of motion) through the ski/golf club portal into your back seat.  You might still want to leave your smaller children, if shaped like a Twinkie, at home when you drive your Lexus ES or IS even if the Living Floor Mats are seemingly secure in the trunk.

To avoid that annoying risk, put half of a stale, but real Twinkie and a splash of any drink from Starbucks in the trunk with them.  Safety first.

Toyota Stops Selling. Suddenly.

Can it be?  Toyota has stopped making Camry's and Corolla's?  And it is telling its dealers to stop selling them?  Due to quality concerns?  No way.  Really?

Really.

The story seems to be that Toyota has a problem with these best-selling cars.  But so does GM and Ford, last seen chugging along way behind in a Camry's rear-view sale volume mirror.  How bad a quality problem can a Toyota car have?

This raises a lot of question marks (see above).  Toyota has already recalled over four million US sold cars, more than it, and almost everyone else, for that matter, sold in 2009.  They seemed to have recalled that the cars don't work quite right.  In large part, they were built well and looked sweet, that's for sure.  They still have great acceleration for their respective classes of vehicles, but, I guess, it ends there.

Or, more accurately, not.

These cars love to accelerate so much that they will just suddenly do it on their own.  And keep on doing it until you land in the ocean, if you are lucky enough to as live near to an ocean as I do.  Your new Camry might generate more G force than the last Space Shuttle roaring into the skies of Florida and later landing in the drink, too.  Except, NASA's ten thousand MIT and Cal Tech PhD's carefully planned for all that and your less schooled Camry didn't even hint at it.

Toyota did assure us all that this sudden-and-endless acceleration is even rarer than that Space Shuttle launch, does not cost nearly as much and won't require a tow back to Texas.

So.  Have you driven a Ford lately?  It might not be as exciting as a Corolla, but it won't deform your cheerful smile into Zombie-face, either.