As Toyota Motor Corp.’ s massive recall spread around the world Thursday, the Japanese automaker believed it had found a fix for the faulty accelerator pedals at the heart of its crisis.
The potential fix comes as Toyota’s reputation for quality and reliability was further undermined by extending the recall to Europe and China, and adding another million vehicles to a November recall linked to gas pedals getting stuck on floor mats.
Toyota is in the midst of dealing with two recalls relating to unintended acceleration of its vehicles.
The first, the floor-mat recall, now involves more than five million vehicles.
The second, which arose last week and relates to 2.3 million vehicles in North America, is due to a mechanical defect in the pedal produced by Indiana parts-maker CTS Corp. that causes it, in certain rare instances, to stick when exposed to condensation.
Toyota has two suppliers of gas pedals on affected vehicles. No issue has been identified with the other supplier, Denso Corp.
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The second recall prompted Toyota to take the unusual step Monday of halting the sale and production of eight of its most popular vehicles, causing incalculable damage to the brand as it sought a solution.
Since then, the carmaker has been working with CTS to redesign the faulty pedal and now thinks it has a solution.
CTS chief executive Vinod Khilnani said the company has started shipping the redesigned pedals to Toyota plants.
Khilnani said CTS has ramped up production to help Toyota modify and replace the pedals for the recalled vehicles.
“That new design, I believe, has been tested adequately by CTS and Toyota and has been agreed as the solution,” he said on a conference call.
“All of our three facilities (including one in Mississauga, Ont.) that supply to Toyota are already (producing) the new pedal.”
Khilnani said that, to his knowledge, there have been fewer than 12 reported incidents involving the faulty pedal, and no fatalities.
Toyota, however, faces at least five lawsuits for deaths or injuries allegedly related to sudden acceleration in its vehicles since 2002.
Toyota, for its part, has taken responsibility for the design flaws of the CTS pedal, and said it has confidence in the parts supplier.
“We approved this design, so ultimately this is our responsibility,” Toyota spokesman Mike Goss said in an interview.
David Cole, Center for Automotive Research chairman, said he met with Toyota officials last week and was told that they will also put an override into the vehicle’s computers whereby if both the gas pedal and the brake are pushed at the same, the engine will kill.
But even if a solution has been found, Toyota’s brand has taken a major hit, he said, adding any perception it carried over its competitors of being a producer of high quality vehicles has essentially been erased by the recall.
No timeline has been set for when CTS and Denso will be able to produce enough pedals to begin fixing the recalled vehicles.
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