NEW YORK CITY -- Toyota Motor Sales USA said it is sending replacement kits for its sticking acceleration pedal mechanisms to its North American dealerships by Feb. 9. The worldwide count of cars found with the troubled parts - including a few Chinese-built Ford vans - meanwhile rose to 4.2 million.
The world's top ranked motor vehicle manufacturer issued a statment from its headquarters here 6:30 a.m. Feb. 1 outlining its correction program. Technical bulletins and service technician training materials have been sent out in advance of the actural parts.
Dealers will be open "around the clock" - at 30 minutes per replacement - to correct the 2.3 million vehicles sold in the US alone. Customers are to get calls on when to come in to their nearest dealerships for repairs.
Company officials, in a Jan. 30 e-mail to distributors, urged dealers to give repair priority to customer vehicles over dealer inventory. Toyota, in the same statement, said that sales of the affected eight 2010 model lines will resume Feb. 9.
"We know what's causing the sticking accelerator pedals and we know what we have to do to fix it," said TMS President and Chief Operating Officer Jim Lentz Feb. 1. "We also know it's most important to fix this problem in the cars on the road."
Lentz repeated his comments in an e-mail and while being interviewed on the NBC TV's "Today" show. The circumstance is TMS' most serious since coming to North America 50 years ago. They had a recall campaign, involving floor mats interfiering with gas pedals, last year.
Toyota ordered suspending sales of its eight models Jan. 26 - five days after it announced that it was recalling the vehicles with the specific troubled pedal assembly.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Jan. 29 that it was satisified with TMS' plan NHTSA oversees auto maker product recalls.
Toyota will meanwhile do the same for the other 1.9 million vehicles elsewhere around the world. They include some Toyotas sold in Europe.
Ford and its Jiangling Motors Corp. partner in China have meanwhile found the faulty parts on their 1,663 Transit Classic diesel vans. While a Ford spokeswoman, in a Jan. 31 published report, said they were still determining whether any of the affected vehicles reached consumers, she stressed that the vans are meant only for China.
Four friction points between the pedal's pivot and the firewall mount, according to a TMS illustration, are at the heart of the problem. These friction points are apparantly causing the pedal to stick during partial acceleration or to slowly return to idle position.
TMS is supplying a reinforcement bar that would be placed like a shim between the wall mount and the actual firewall. This bar will relieve the friction points and allow for smoother pedal travel.
It is not known whether TMS is getting the replacement parts from CTS, of Elkhart, Ind. CTS had been supplying pedal assemblies for Toyota, Ford, Honda and several other auto makers. It has supplied pedal parts on three percent of Toyotas built since 2005 and had received a product development excellence award from Honda in 2008.
A Honda spokeswoman said that CTS had supplied pedals - but not the same suspect components - for "a small number of models."
The Toyota release added that its Japan-built models use another supplier - Denso Corp.
The affected models are:
2005-10 Avalons
2007-10 Tundra pickup trucks
2008-10 Sequoia SUVs
2009-10 Matrix hatchbacks
Certian models of the following are affected: (The below models that have a "J" Vehicle Identification Number prefix are NOT affected.)
2007-10 Camrys
2009-10 Corollas and RAV4 crossovers
2010 Highlander crossovers
TMS advises sriver that "a firm and steady application of the brakes" can return a pedal from sticking in a part-open throttle position or if it slowly returns to idle position.
Details are found at toyota.com/recall and (800) 331-4331.
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