plus 4, Toyota recall: Pedals can jam - Tulsa World

Toyota recall: Pedals can jam - Tulsa World
Toyota has a lot riding on fixes for recalled vehicles - Courier-Journal
Drive specialist adopts a new, holistic approach - Engineering News
Toyota to replace gas pedals on 4.3M vehicles in recall - Austin American-Statesman
New charges filed in Lowell hit-and-run - Boston Globe

Toyota recall: Pedals can jam - Tulsa World

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 02:01 PM PST

WASHINGTON — Toyota Motor Corp. said Wednesday it will replace accelerator pedals on about 4 million recalled vehicles in the United States because the pedals can get stuck in the floor mats, another blow to the reputation of the world's largest automaker.

Toyota said dealers will offer to shorten the length of the gas pedals by about three-quarters of an inch beginning in January, as a stopgap measure while the company develops replacement pedals. New pedals will be installed by dealers on a rolling basis beginning in April, and some vehicles will gain brake override systems.

Toyota announced the massive recall in late September and told owners to remove the driver's side floor mats to keep the gas pedal from becoming jammed.

Popular vehicles such as the Toyota Camry, the top-selling passenger car in America, and the Toyota Prius, the best-selling gas-electric hybrid, are among those getting fixed. The recall also included the luxury Lexus ES350, the vehicle in a fiery fatal accident in California that focused public attention on the danger.

Toyota spokesman Irv Miller said the company was "very, very confident that we have addressed this issue" with the new fix. Toyota has found "no reason to believe that there is a problem with the electronic control systems," he said.

Toyota officials said the floor mats are only sold in the U.S. Toyota declined to provide a cost estimate for the fix, but analysts said it would be extremely expensive because of the extensive repairs involved

and the manufacturing of pedals.

In a separate action, Toyota announced Tuesday that it would recall 110,000 Tundra trucks from the 2000-03 model years to address excessive rust on the frame.

"Their reputation has taken a hit because the actual quality has taken a hit," said Aaron Bragman, an automotive analyst for the consulting firm IHS Global Insight. "That's absolutely critical for Toyota to get that fixed because that's the central pillar that they've built their business on."

The gas pedal recall is Toyota's largest in the U.S. and the sixth-largest ever in the U.S., according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. It includes 3.8 million vehicles, including the 2007-10 model year Camry, 2005-10 Toyota Avalon, 2004-09 Prius, 2005-10 Toyota Tacoma, 2007-10 Toyota Tundra, 2007-10 Lexus ES350 and 2006-10 Lexus IS250/350.

It was prompted by a high-speed crash in August involving a 2009 Lexus ES350 that killed a California Highway Patrol officer and three members of his family near San Diego. The Lexus hit speeds exceeding 120 mph, struck a sport utility vehicle, launched off an embankment, rolled several times and burst into flames. In a frantic 911 call, a family member said the accelerator was stuck and the driver couldn't stop.

The government has attributed at least five deaths and two injuries to floor mat-related acceleration in the Toyota vehicles and has received reports of more than 100 incidents in which the accelerator may have become stuck.

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Toyota has a lot riding on fixes for recalled vehicles - Courier-Journal

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 12:42 PM PST

Toyota Motor Corp.'s willingness to go beyond replacing floor mats will raise the cost of its largest-ever recall, but it may contain any damage in the marketplace, industry experts said Wednesday.

Beginning in January, dealers will cut nearly an inch off the lower edge of the gas pedal and adjust the width, a company spokesman said. Replacement pedals are to be available starting in April.

That may not cost much in the short term. But on some of the vehicles being recalled -- 2005 through 2010 model-year Toyota Avalons and 2007 through 2010 Camrys and Lexus ES350s -- the automaker will reconfigure the floor surface beneath the pedal to create more space between the pedal and the floor.

Some of these vehicles are made at the Toyota facility in Georgtown, Ky.

Those three models, along with the Lexus IS250 and IS350, also are to be outfitted with a new brake override system.

Those fixes will add up, but Toyota did not reveal a cost.

"If you have to dig into the vehicle like in the powertrain or under the dash, the cost is high, even if the part cost is low," said David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has found that on most recalls, only 72% of affected owners bring their vehicles in for prescribed repairs. That means Toyota dealers can expect to see 2.7 million of the 3.8 million vehicles recalled. That's more than Toyota's total U.S. sales in the prerecession year of 2007.

"It's going to be a lengthy process," said Aaron Bragman, an analyst with IHS Global Insight in Troy. "But they have to do something."

A serious problem

At least a dozen fatalities have occurred when Toyota or Lexus vehicles have surged unexpectedly and drivers supposedly could not stop them by stomping hard on the brake.

Last month, the family of a 77-year-old Flint woman, Guadalupe Alberto, sued Toyota in Genesee County Circuit Court. Alberto died in April 2008 after her 2005 Camry is said to have accelerated from 25 to 80 m.p.h. and hit two trees. She died from the impact.

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Drive specialist adopts a new, holistic approach - Engineering News

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 02:01 PM PST

Drive and gearbox specia- list SEW Eurodrive has adopted a new global strategy from Germany, the Drive 360º, which focuses on selling SEW Eurodrive products holistically and providing solution-based products to its industries.

This strategy takes all aspects of an application into account including the planning stages before a drive is even selected, allowing SEW Eurodrive to be even more involved with its customers.

Besides the benefits that the Drive 360º concept offers, SEW Eurodrive also networks with other SEW Eurodrive companies around the world and is able to cross-reference units and drives installed in different industries internationally. Through this networking, it reports, it is able to achieve the best solutions to meet individual client needs.

SEW Eurodrive, in Germany, has created a system called Variolution, which is part of the Drive 360º strategy and is a package of drives and gearboxes suited to specific industries, including the automotive indus- try, the food and beverage industry and the logistics industry. This allows clients to easily select and apply SEW Eurodrive's services, which provide exact proposals to meet requirements for specific applications within a specific industry, reports the company.

SEW Eurodrive GM for marketing and sales Ute Bormann tells Engineering News that, because the Drive 360º application results in employees needing to extend their knowledge beyond product marketing, the company has focused significant attention in the last three years on bringing intellect and expertise to clients by employing qualified technicians on the factory floor, as well as employing qualified, experienced engineering staff, with diplomas or degrees, into its sales and projects office.

SEW Eurodrive has always strived towards employing people of this calibre and this goal is constantly being realised. "Our expertise is both as a pro- duct specialist and industry specialist," Bormann says.

The attention to training does not only include product training. Technical skills are honed and workshop staff are sent out on apprenticeship programmes and training courses.

Internally, SEW Eurodrive has been working closely on keeping the motivation levels of its staff and the industry high. It has focused on team building to keep the morale of the business up, and reports that this is a significant contributing factor to SEW Eurodrive's survival during the recession.

Meanwhile, SEW Eurodrive was recognised by business research and consulting firm Frost & Sullivan as the market leader in the South African gearboxes and geared motors market and was awarded the 2008 Frost & Sullivan Market Leadership Award. This award is presented to companies that exhibit market share leadership though a marketing strategy.

Frost & Sullivan reports that SEW Eurodrive has a 19,7% share of the gearboxes and geared motors market in South Africa. This, it says, is 4,7% higher than its closest competitor, which holds 15% of the market share.

Bormann says that SEW Eurodrive South Africa has always strived to have the same presence that is represented by the global SEW Eurodrive brand.

Meanwhile, SEW Eurodrive is performing well in a number of industries, including the auto- motive industry, despite the financial downturn's negative impact on this industry. The company has achieved successes in chrome-, platinum- and copper-mining. The food and beverage and mixing and agitation industries have proved beneficial for the company. The recent development of products for the mixing and agitation industry, not previously available from SEW Eurodrive, has opened up this new market for the company.

Borman says that the com- pany did feel a slight strain from the current economic climate, but, as a result of the wide range of industries it operates in and its diverse client base that it services, SEW Eurodrive has experienced positive growth since 2008.

It has, however, had to work harder than in previous years to achieve and sustain this growth. The engineering industry is under pressure, and SEW Eurodrive has looked at various initiatives, not only in terms of pricing, but also in terms of service delivery, to assist the industry.

The downturn has, however, had a significant impact on SEW Eurodrive's customers, resulting in the company providing increased support to its end-users.

Clients have started looking into their total cost of ownership, now more than ever, and reassessing their options on whether to replace a drive with a new one or to repair a damaged drive.

The company finds itself in a positive position in terms of this issue, as all SEW Eurodrive systems are modular. Because there are 48 000 components that make up more than three-million combinations, all components can be replaced according to customers' needs during these difficult economic times.

Future plans for the company include the continual effort to bring SEW Eurodrive closer to the customer and the launch of a new energy saving motor for next year.

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Toyota to replace gas pedals on 4.3M vehicles in recall - Austin American-Statesman

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 11:09 AM PST

AUTOMAKERS

By Ken Thomas
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Thursday, November 26, 2009

WASHINGTON — In another blow to the reputation of the world's largest automaker, Toyota Motor Corp. said Wednesday it will replace accelerator pedals on about 4 million recalled vehicles in the United States because the pedals can get stuck in the floor mats.

Toyota said that beginning in January, dealers will offer to shorten the length of the gas pedals — by about three-quarters of an inch — as a stopgap measure while the company develops replacement pedals for their vehicles. New pedals will be installed by dealers on a rolling basis beginning in April, and some vehicles will have brake override systems installed as a precaution.

Toyota announced the far-reaching recall in September and told owners to remove the driver's side floor mats to keep the gas pedal from becoming jammed.

Popular vehicles such as the Toyota Camry, the top-selling passenger car in America, and the Toyota Prius, the best-selling gas-electric

hybrid, are among those getting fixed. The recall also included the luxury Lexus ES350, the vehicle involved in a fiery fatal accident in California that focused public attention on the danger.

Toyota spokesman Irv Miller said the company was "very, very confident that we have addressed this issue" with the new fix.

Officials with Japan-based Toyota said that the floor mats are sold only in the U.S. and that the recall would be limited to North America.

Toyota declined to provide a cost estimate for the fix, but analysts said it would be extremely expensive because of the extensive repairs involved and the manufacturing of new pedals. Toyota also said it would provide newly designed replacement floor mats for the driver and front-passenger side.

The federal National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said 4.3 million vehicles would be covered, including new cars and trucks sold since September and others manufactured since the recall was announced.

The recall was prompted by a high-speed crash in August involving a 2009 Lexus ES350 that killed a California Highway Patrol officer and three members of his family near San Diego. The Lexus hit speeds exceeding 120 mph, struck a sport-utility vehicle, launched off an embankment, rolled several times and burst into flames. In a frantic 911 call, a family member told emergency responders that the accelerator was stuck and the driver couldn't stop.

Federal investigators determined that a rubber all-weather floor mat found in the wreckage was slightly longer than the mat that belonged in the vehicle and could have snared or covered the accelerator pedal.

Toyota issued a statement this month saying the U.S. traffic safety agency had confirmed "that no defect exists in vehicles in which the driver's floor mat is compatible with the vehicle and properly secured."

In a rare rebuke, agency officials accused Toyota of releasing misleading information about the recall, saying removing the mats did not "correct the underlying defect."

To fix the problem, Toyota and the government said dealers will shorten the length of the accelerator pedal on the recalled vehicles and in some cases remove foam from beneath the carpeting near the pedal to increase the space between the pedal and the floor. They said owners of the ES350, Camry and Avalon would be the first to receive notification because the vehicles are believed to have the highest risk for pedal entrapment.

Toyota also plans to install a brake override system on the Camry, Avalon and Lexus ES350, IS350 and IS250 models, Toyota and the traffic safety agency said. The brake override system will ensure that the vehicle will stop if the brake and the accelerator pedals are applied at the same time.

Toyota plans to make the brake override system standard equipment throughout the Toyota and Lexus lineup by the end of 2010.

The recall represents the latest blemish for Toyota, which developed a sterling reputation for quality in the U.S. by selling reliable family vehicles but faced challenges as it rapidly expanded. Although recalls do not always indicate diminished reliability, Toyota executives have expressed concern about large numbers of recalls and pushed for improved quality controls.

In a separate action, Toyota announced Tuesday that it would recall 110,000 Tundra trucks from the 2000-03 model years to address excessive rust on the vehicle's frame.

"Their reputation has taken a hit because the actual quality has taken a hit," said Aaron Bragman, an automotive analyst with consulting firm IHS Global Insight. "That's absolutely critical for Toyota to get that fixed because that's the central pillar that they've built their business on."

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New charges filed in Lowell hit-and-run - Boston Globe

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 10:12 AM PST

Investigation of the crash has been completed, but additional charges may be filed based on the investigation of Medeiross actions after the hit and run accident, Lowell police officer Francisco Maldonado said in a phone interview today.

These charges are just strictly related to the motor vehicle crash, he said. For additional charges in regards to the actions to conceal a crime, thats still under investigation.

After the 2:30 p.m. accident at the intersection of Mammoth Road, Medeiros made a 3 p.m. hair appointment in Lawrence, while Savanhmixay was rushed to Lowell General Hospital and later airlifted to Boston, police said.

After the stop at the salon, Medeiros called her parents to tell them her car had been damaged in the parking lot. Her parents picked her up and filed a report with Lawrence police. The car, with a smashed windshield, was towed to Best Auto Body & Repair in Methuen, whose owner is a friend of Medeiross father.

Michael Murray, owner of Best Auto, said he had already seen the car when he first heard about the hit-and-run, but did not suspect it was involved. The family told me the car was vandalized, he said, adding that the family are regular customers.

The day after the accident, Medeiros, a Methuen High School senior, attended school.

The new motor vehicle infractions filed against Medeiros are: passing a vehicle stopped for a pedestrian in a crosswalk; failure to use caution when changing lanes; and operating at a speed greater than reasonable and proper.

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