I drive America's best-selling car: the Toyota Camry. Specifically, a 2007 Camry. More specifically, one of the death machines involved in the largest automobile recall in U.S. history. Even more specifically, as of today, one of the 8 vehicle models that Toyota is halting the production and dealership sales of. Yeah. Guess this is pretty serious.
Here's some background history because I know you're all concerned:
I purchased my car when it first came to the Toyota lot in June of 2006. I received a recall notice in 2007 or 2008, regarding the all-weather accessory floor mats. I didn't really pay much attention to this recall because, well, it involved floor mats. This past November I received another recall in the mail regarding the driver's floor mat. This recall involved 4.2 million cars. That's a few cars. Owners were asked to remove the driver's floor mat as it was thought that the mat could cause the accelerator petal to stick. Accelerator sticking? That's bad news bears. I had been watching news reports about this and decided that this time I would take the recall seriously. I (Who am I kidding? Truth be told, my brother removed my floor mat because I still wasn't taking it completely serious) removed my floor mat and have not replaced it, as instructed per the recall letter.
Within the past year, several Toyota models have become possessed and have taken the driver and passengers on a death ride. There have been many incidents of random acceleration (some 2,000 accidents), which have sadly ended in injuries and near 20 fatalities. There have been 60 new cases of runaway Toyotas since the floor mat recall notice I received just this past November.
This past week, Toyota announced a 2.3 million car recall (yes, me again) to fix the sticking accelerator pedal. Today, January 26, Toyota decided to halt production and to suspend vehicle sales of all models involved in the recall. Apparently the stuck accelerator remains a mystery to Toyota. They can't quite figure out what is causing it or how they are going to fix it. They first thought it was the floor mats, then they thought the solution would be to reshape the gas pedal. Now they're saying they will replace the gas pedal and install an additional braking system. Who knows. Toyota executives are still denying electronic or computer problems. However, I do feel that it's probably more of an issue in the computer unit/software. Owners have removed floor mats and are storing them in trunks as directed, yet these accidents are still occurring. There has to be more going on internally. Recalling the floor mats and reshaping the gas pedal are just 'band-aids' to cover up more of a serious underlying issue. Whatever the reason for the random acceleration issues, I hope a solution and permanent fix is discovered. And soon. In the mean time, I pray (and you should too) that my car doesn't go speeding out of control as a 'Runaway Toyota' as I'm driving down the road. Oh my.
