Wait a few months to buy a Toyota hybrid

Far fewer buyers interested in Toyota vehicles

Based on auto sales figures today, it would seem that Toyota has weathered its recall woes very well. New research, however, warns that Toyota's sales are a result of the "pull-ahead affect". Essentially, incentives brought would-be Toyota shoppers to market a bit sooner.

Moving forward, Toyota will need new consumers, and that probably won't be easy without even more incentives. Brand consideration for Toyota has dropped from 75 percent in January to 49 percent in February - about the same as domestics.

Finish: Wait a few months to buy a Toyota hybrid

Toyota Prius unintended acceleration charges in Japan

Police to charge driver

Following an investigation of a Toyota Prius crash in Japan, police are now seeking to charge the driver of the Prius.

Originally, the driver claimed that the Prius brakes didn't respond, but the data retrieved from an investigation into the crash demonstrated that the brakes were working just fine and that the driver, not the Prius, was at fault according to CNBC News.

Runaway NY Prius probably due to driver error

A favorite for bad drivers?

Just caught Phil Lebeau on CNBC reporting that the NY case of a runway Toyota Prius, according to data captured and reviewed by Toyota and the NHTSA, appears to have been a case of driver error.

Surviving unintended acceleration is easy

Neutral, neutral, neutral

Kudos to Edmunds for putting out a number of stories focused on the real unintended acceleration story, survival.

Yes, I know, many of these unintended acceleration stories are probably nonsense, such as the latest runaway Prius story, and that might also be a piece of the 'real story'. Likewise, the chances of experiencing unintended acceleration are exceptionally slim.

Ultimately, despite what Congressional grand-standers, ambulance chasing attorneys and a drama-thirsty media would have you believe, most instances of unintended acceleration are easy to survive. According to Edmunds, shifting your car into neutral instantly ends unintended acceleration. Nevertheless, Edmunds was still was able to stop a V-6 Camry with a wide open throttle by keeping strong and constant pressure on the brakes, even without power brakes.

Essentially, almost all sudden acceleration problems are survivable, if you are an informed driver.

Speaking of which, anyone want to start a class action lawsuit against the DMV for failing to properly educate today's motorists?

Great time to crash a Toyota!

The car did it

Contrary to popular opinion, now is the greatest time ever to own a Toyota. Today you can talk and text while driving. You might even be able to get away with drunk driving, just make sure you're only drinking vodka, or something that doesn't stink too much. Even better, get a little kinky while cruising down the road.

No worries these days, at least as long as you own a Toyota, of course. If you get in a crash, no one will question you once they see you drive a Toyota.

And, when you're tired of your car, or can no longer afford the payments.......

Another speeding Prius

An unintended 94 mph

Yesterday, a Southern California man claimed to have experienced sudden acceleration in his 2008 Toyota Prius. For some 30 miles James Sikes could not slow his 94 mph Prius.

After passing another car on the freeway, Sikes said the gas pedal stuck and the car just kept accelerating. Putting full pressure on the brakes did nothing to slow the Prius which "just kept accelerating". While unintentionally accelerating, Sikes drove the car with one hand while trying to remove the floor mat and even trying to work the gas pedal lose, but that didn't work either.

After a fruitless 911 call, a CHP officer pulled alongside the man and instructed him to put on the emergency brake while depressing the brakes, bringing the car's speed down to 55 mph, at which point the officer told Sikes to shut off the car.

In a later report, Sikes said he would have shut off the car earlier, but he was worried about losing the power steering.

Related: InsideLine calls Sikes story "BS"

ABC altered evidence against Toyota on recalls? Not even the half of it

Purely seeking drama for ratings?

After days of questions about whether ABC altered evidence in an important report the TV station ran on the Toyota 'unintended acceleration' recalls, and seized upon by Congress, were 'doctored', finally an answer. Turns out the automaker used fake footage to dramatize their story, as Gawker.com states was used to "make it look scarier."(tip via KickingTires)

But faked drama isn't even the real story today. Before Congress experts questioned the entire premise put forth by David W. Gilbert, an automotive technology professor at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and ABC's key expert.

Chris Gerdes, director of Stanford University's Center for Automotive Research, and a consulting firm, Exponent Inc., "said the professor had tampered with wiring to create electronic glitches that could never occur on the road."

Likewise, the same tampering could achieve the same effects in many other cars, and was achieved using both the Subaru Outback and the Ford Fusion.

Other automakers just as culpable as Toyota?

Congress = Clueless? Reactionary? Complicit?

"If you look at the entire market size and fleet size of Toyota, I think they were the largest fleet during that time period as well. If you look at it on a per capita basis, I think our investigators and the data shows that while they had more sudden acceleration incidents, their actual comparison to the rest of the fleet was actually unremarkable. They had the same percentage of sudden acceleration issues as other manufacturers. They just had more of them because they have more cars."

- NHTSA Administrator David Strickland, during questioning from Senator Tom Udall (D-NM).

To which Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI) responded,

“I think we should be honest with ourselves, if it
is an industry problem, we should hear from the industry, not just from Toyota”.

So, who in Congress knew this and when did they know it? Which other automakers knew what and when?

Toyotagate: House Panel more concerned with Big 3 profits than safety?

10,000 rollover deaths per year

Since 2000 there have been 2,600 complaints of unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles that have led to 34 deaths. Rather than fix this problem, according to a Congressional Panel, Toyota was 'more concerned with profits than safety'.

Of course, since 2000, Toyota has sold many tens of millions of vehicles, and more than 99.9 percent of them have been safer and more reliable than most other brands on the road then or today. So, it isn't that surprising that Toyota was slow to react, or that they assumed the problem must be with drivers.

Nonetheless, 34 people have died. For that, Toyota deserves some vilification.

Still, in the last decade, for instance, anyone driving a Honda Civic has been 2 times safer than someone driving a Chevy Cavalier. Why? Was GM more concerned with profits than safety? Likewise years of crash data demonstrate that foreign autos are consistently and significantly safer than domestic autos. Why? Did the Big 3 sacrifice safety for profits?

Finally, there is the House Panel itself, now led by Michigan's own John Dingell, a fearless lobbyist - I mean Congressperson - for GM and the Big 3.

Finish: Toyotagate - House Panel more concerned with profits than safety

Toyota recall: Why doesn't the data match the accusations?

More Toyota junk?

According to a recent MSNBC article Toyota's latest recalls are just an example of how Toyota quality has been slipping for years. Really?

And what's MSNBC's data for such a claim? A CNW perceived quality study. CNW? The same CNW that asserted that Hummers are far better for the environment than the Toyota Prius? Yup.

On the other hand, we have Consumer Reports, JD Power and NHTSA data. But, to be fair, since I'm calling CNW biased, we'll call Consumer Reports biased, since they are usually very supportive of Toyota quality, and Big 3 fans have often accused CR of bias. Fine. But then there is also the many years of JD Power's consumer-driven data that largely confirms the same reliability as suggested by CR. And, more recently, Edmunds studied the NTHSA database and found that only Mercedes, Porsche and Smart have received less quality complaints than Toyota over the last decade.

Finally, there is the unintended acceleration historical data. The problem of unintended acceleration has existed for decades and there is strong data to suggest that at least a significant percent of this problem - at least historically - has been due to driver error. Hate me for partially blaming the drivers, but that's what a significant amount of the evidence suggests.

Regardless, perhaps Toyota is more culpable this time around. Nonetheless, when it comes to the data the message seems to be clear, Toyota consumers have fewer problems with their vehicles compared to almost every other major automaker.

So, are media outlets such as MSNBC driven by perception and speculation, or the facts?

And I'd still buy a Toyota Prius

Time to chillax?

OK. Recall. Recall. Recall. Tired of hearing those words yet?

I am, and I'm going to try to avoid them for the next few days. Besides, if I were going to write again on this issue, it would very much resemble MotorTrend's Wild, Out of Control Toyotas? Baloney. So, why rewrite what has already been said?

Thus, I'd just like to conclude my recall talk by saying that if I were in the market today, I'd buy a Toyota Prius without any hesitation, even a used third generation Prius without the braking software update.

And I'd still sleep soundly at night.

Toyota's powerful DC friends? Are you kidding me?

Can you say John Dingell?

Boy the media's coverage of Toyota-gate has become almost laughable at times. Lately, the new angle is Toyota's political friends in Washington.

"Some members of Congress have been such cheerleaders for Toyota that the public may wonder how they can act objectively as government watchdogs for auto safety and oversight."

LOL! Wow. John Dingell anyone?

Has Michigan Congressman John Dingell ever acted objectively when it has come to the Big 3, especially when Dingell was the fricken Chairmen of the HUGELY important House Energy and Commerce Committee? Is the media kidding? I mean talk about subjective cheerleaders!

Those of us that have followed CAFE for the last several years, for instance, can only chuckle at the idea that somehow Toyota has more political friends in Washington than does Detroit. For decades DC power-brokers, such as Dingell, have ensured that Big 3 SUV profits were safe from CAFE regulations, despite an average of 10,000 deaths per year because of defective and inadequate designs, despite 9/11, and despite growing evidence that foreign oil dependence was becoming an ever greater threat to American national security.

I know, Toyota-gate has also caused almost 10,000 deaths in the last year. OK, at least a couple of deaths.

Toyota deserves a lot of criticism these days, but if the media really wants to make America safer, isn't it time to start focusing on some real issues?

Prius recall now official

In need of a software tweak

Toyota has acknowledged that the third generation Prius needs a software update to prevent a braking lag that can occur on bumpy or slippery surfaces. According to Toyota, the lag lasts for less than a second, but the brakes will work as long as the driver keeps pushing down on the brake pedal.

Toyota has already made the software update to all new Prius hybrids being sold.

Can the US handle Toyota's recalls objectively?

Heard about the 1,100 Cobalt complaints yet?

So, Toyota has sold several hundred thousand Toyota Prius hybrids and a few dozen drivers have complained about less than adequate brakes in icy and/or bumpy road conditions. Obviously, this is an important issue to be investigated, especially in light of Toyota's sluggish response to potential accelerator issues, but just how important is it really?

For instance, is it more important than more than 1,100 complaints of Chevy Cobalts losing their power steering? It seems so for much the media. For instance CNNMoney ran this headline on the Prius, Complaints pile up about Prius brakes and made it a lead story. CNN also ran the Cobalt story with this headline, About 900,000 Cobalts in probe, and they buried the story.

So, 1,100 complaints are irrelevant compared to dozens of complaints because it's the Prius? 1100 complaints and growing is a 'probe', but dozens of complaints are a 'pile' on?

Likewise, today Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood stated that Toyota drivers affected by the recall need to stop driving their vehicles until fixed. Of course, he later recanted that statement, but the damage had already been done. The fact that 99 percent of Toyota drivers affected by the recall have experienced NO problem made LaHood change his tune a bit.

For days now I've wondered, can the US government objectively monitor Toyota now that it has directly invested more than $100 billion into the US auto industry, while also loaning 10's of billions more to automakers? For example, in a court of law such a party would usually have to recluse themselves from such a case for having a vested interest.

And the US government certainly has a vested interest. Today, anything good for the US auto industry is good for the US government, and there is no doubt the Toyota recall has been GREAT for the US auto industry. In fact, the Toyota recall has been the best news Detroit has received in years.

Certainly, that doesn't excuse Toyota, a company that has seemed to have had its head up its ass for a while on this recall issue.

Still, there are almost 1 million cars on the road right now that could lose power steering at any moment. Who knows how many crashes and repair bills this has caused in the past as most complaints have only been received in just the last several months. We do know, however, that some Cobalt owners, minimally, have paid to have this problem fixed in years past without ever knowing that the problem was a defect. So, when did GM suspect there might be a problem?

Yet, most of the press doesn't care. It's 'pile' on Toyota time. Yet, I have to ask, does that have anything to do with the fact that, historically, GM has been critically more important than all other automakers for the advertising profits of much of the US media?

Again, that doesn't absolve or lessen Toyota's recall responsibility, but are Toyota's problems really that much different from problems that regularly face - and HAVE faced - most automakers at some point in time?