Toyota Motor Corp’s China venture is recalling 21,685 locally made buses due to potential problems with the rear stabliser bar, local media said on Tuesday.

The buses were produced by Sichuan FAW Toyota Motor, the top Japanese auto maker’s venture with FAW Group, between Feb. 1, 2001, and May 31 this year, the semi-official Xinhuanet said.

It did not say whether any accidents or personal injuries had been linked to the defect.

Officials at Sichuan FAW Toyota could not immediately be reached for comment.

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Toyota Motor Co. will recall floor mats from 55,000 Camry and Lexus ES 350 models due to complaints of unintended acceleration caused by the mats sticking underneath the accelerator pedal, federal safety officials and the automaker said Wednesday.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration took the unusual step of highlighting Toyota’s recall announcement, advising owners of other Toyota models — including the Prius hybrid and Avalon sedans — to ensure their floor mats are properly installed.
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“We have also received complaints about the RAV 4″ crossover “and Tacoma” pickup, said Rae Tyson, a spokesman for NHTSA. “We will continue to monitor all of the other Toyota vehicles not involved in the recall.”

In several of the original complaints, drivers said the vehicles only stopped after an accident. One driver told the agency the vehicle had hit speeds of 100 m.p.h. over a 6-mile stretch of freeway due to the problem.

At the time, Toyota told safety officials it had identified an optional all-weather floor mat that if not properly secured by clips to the floor could stick under the accelerator pedal; in some cases, Toyota said owners had simply put the rubber mat over the standard floor mats.

The company contended it had dealt with the problem through a mailing to customers earlier this year.
Toyota said Wednesday the recall involves 30,500 mats for the ES 350 and 24,500 mats for the 2007 and 2008 Toyota Camry.
Owners will be told of the recall in October and offered replacement mats in November. The company also warned drivers to check their floor mats and make sure that only one was installed.

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by John Neff

Pickuptruck.com has updated his report on the story surrounding the failure of 20 camshaft in the 2007 Toyota Tundra’s 5.7L V8 engine. Levine noticed that Toyota has already posted on two internet forums expressing regret to Tundra owners over the incident. Though the author’s name was not provided, identical posts were published by “TMSUSA” on ToyotaNation.com and TundraSolutions.com that address customer concerns and provide this expression of remorse:

“Although the number of affected Tundras is very small, we very much regret that even one of our trucks was manufactured with a camshaft processing flaw and certainly any inconvenience caused to our customers.”

Meanwhile, Levine also tracked down a consultant who confirms the estimate we originally reported that it will cost $5,000 to swap out each engine that experiences a failed camshaft. Toyota will certainly pay the estimated $100,000 to repair the 20 trucks already known to have experienced a camshaft failure, but the looming question that’s yet to be answered is how many more trucks might need to have their engine replaced? Toyota Spokesperson Bill Kwong told Levine, “Our dealers have approximately 1,600 new Tundras nationwide for disposal as a loaner vehicle while a customer’s truck is being repaired, and that doesn’t include older Tundras and Tacomas.” While meant more as an assurance that the company will do whatever it can to help out customers who find themselves with an affected engine, that statement also implies Toyota is at least prepared for the number to grow.

[Source: Pickuptruck.com]

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Toyota Motor Corporation (トヨタ自動車株式会社 Toyota Jidōsha Kabushiki-gaisha?), or Toyota, is a Japanese multinational corporation and the world’s largest automaker by revenue (USD $189.89 billion[7]), production, sales (first half 2007: 4.72 million[8]) and profit ($13.5 billion[9])in front of General Motors. Toyota owns and operates Toyota, Lexus, Scion, has a majority shareholding in Daihatsu Motors (a minicar manufacturer), Hino Motors (a manufacturer of commercial trucks) and has minority shareholdings in Fuji Heavy Industries (a manufacturer of Subaru brand cars), Isuzu Motors (the commercial truck manufacturer) and in Yamaha Motors the engine, motor cycle and marine craft manufacturer. The company includes 522 subsidiaries.[1]
The company was founded in 1937 by Kiichiro Toyoda as a spinoff from his father’s company Toyota Industries to create automobiles. It created, first as a department of Toyota Industries, its first product Type A engine in 1934 and its first passenger car (the Toyota AA) in 1936. It is headquartered in Toyota, Aichi and Bunkyo Tokyo, Japan. It also provides financial services through its division Toyota Financial Services and also creates robots besides automobiles.
Toyota together with its half owned subsidiary Daihatsu, is the world’s largest seller of cars for the first half of 2007 selling 4.72 million vehicles, ending GM’s 76 year reign as the world’s best selling marque. [10] Toyota plans to produce 9.4 million vehicles in 2007.[11]

Source:Wikipedia

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by Siddharth Raja

Toyota’s petrol-electric hybrid is one of the most complex cars on the road today, combining an electric motor, a four-cylinder internal combustion engine and a myriad of electronic sensors and computer software to keep the whole show running seamlessly. It’s not hard to fathom that some of the cars could have bugs residing within, and according to accounts from select owners, these bugs are down right dangerous.

Stories of cars accelerating by themselves are not unheard of. One Prius owner with only 600 miles on the clock told ConsumerAffiars of his car experiencing “uncontrollable acceleration,” and another reported that after hitting a large bump in the road, traction control flared up before the brakes cut and the car started to lunge forward.

When questioned, Toyota service technicians dismissed the claims as either driver error or a problem with the floor mats jamming the accelerator pedal. Try telling that to the handful of drivers who’ve been taken for a ride in a Prius with a mind of its own.

[Source: The Truth About Cars]

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by Chris Shunk

The crossover segment is quickly overpopulating many automaker’s lineups (think Mazda and Ford), and Toyota is the latest to join the fray. The folks from Aichi Japan are only a couple months away from launching a production version of the 2005 Tokyo Motor Show’s FSC concept in their home market. The concept blended SUV utility and station wagon styling queues with a platform that’s based on the Camry to give Toyota another entry in what may be the hottest segment in the industry. The for-sale vehicle will be named Mark X Zio in Japan, and it will cart around six or seven passengers via the power of a 2.4- or 3.5-liter engine.

No word yet on whether the Mark X Zio will ever be made available in the US market, but if does ever grace our shores, we doubt the awkward name will make the trek.

[Source: Winding Road]

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