Toyota vehicle recall may be about more than just floor mats

In September, shortly after the horrific death of a California police officer and his family who called 911 in a panic because their Lexus was accelerating and not stopping, the Toyota Motor Corporation issued a massive recall – one of the largest in history.

The auto maker claimed that the California deaths and other incidents of unintended acceleration were caused when the accelerator pedal became trapped under the driver’s side floor mat. The fix, according to Toyota, was for vehicle owners to take the floor mats out of their cars until they could get to a dealer to have the mats replaced.

However, as reports of unexpected acceleration in Toyota vehicles continue to come in from consumers, the auto giant has expanded and modified the recall. In addition, questions are being raised about the real cause of unintended acceleration in Toyota cars and trucks – is it all about the floor mats, or is there a bigger problem?

Some Toyota owners have reported that their vehicles have accelerated unexpectedly, even though they had no floor mats in the vehicle or even when they were absolutely certain that the mats were not interfering with the accelerator pedal.

Auto safety experts and journalists at the L.A. Times agree that there seems to be a bigger problem than just the floor mats. After reviewing incident reports from thousands of cases of unintended acceleration, some believe that the real problem is the electronic throttles that have replaced mechanical acceleration systems in recent years.

Despite the claim from investigative journalists that complaints of unexpected acceleration shot up after Toyota switched to electronic throttles, Toyota denies that the new throttles are the problem. The auto maker is standing by the floor mat explanation, even as they widen the recall and instruct dealers to make more extreme modifications to recalled vehicles than simply replacing the floor mats.

Toyota has defended their claims, stating that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has investigated claims of sudden acceleration six times over the last six years, and each time has failed to find anything wrong with the electronic engine control system.

The data does not look good for Toyota. The L.A. Times investigation noted that since the introduction of the electronic throttle in 2002, there have been 19 deaths due to unexpected acceleration in Toyota vehicles. Compare this to NHTSA data showing that there were only 11 deaths for all other auto makers combined in the same time period.

In addition, the Times stated that NHTSA technology is behind that of automakers, so it is difficult for the agency to thoroughly investigate alleged problems with today’s sophisticated computer-driven vehicles. Not only that, but according to the Times the NHTSA in all the times that the NHTSA supposedly investigated unexpected acceleration issues with Toyota, they only twice examined actual vehicles, and even then only briefly.

It seems that the jury is not in on Toyota’s sudden acceleration problem. Let’s just hope that no more lives are lost or innocent people hurt because of what might be a deadly – but preventable – design flaw.

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