Toyota announces global recall of more than 400,000 Prius, other hybrid cars
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, February 9, 2010; 6:26 AM


TOKYO -- Toyota on Tuesday announced another global recall -- this time, more than 400,000 Prius and other hybrid cars with braking problems, as a quality crisis continues to curse the carmaker that built its global reputation on quality.
Toyota president Akio Toyoda used extraordinary language at a press conference here to apologize for quality and safety issues that have led to the recall of more than 7 million vehicles in recent months.
He repeated three times that Toyota was neither failure-proof nor "omnipotent," and he said that his company would now "redouble our commitment to quality as the lifeline of our company."
The recall will fix a software glitch in the brakes of the Prius and three other hybrid models. It has caused brief and sometimes frightening delays in perceived braking capacity on icy or bumpy roads.
The fix, which dealers can make in about 40 minutes, will apply to 223,000 hybrids sold in Japan, along with 133,000 Prius cars and 14,500 Lexus HS250h vehicles in the United States. Nearly 53,000 Priuses are also being recalled in Europe. It begins in Japan on Wednesday and in the United States "as soon as possible," the company said.
The latest model of the Prius, which was rolled out last May, was the best-selling car in Japan last year and has also sold well in the United States. The car is bigger, more powerful and gets better mileage than earlier Prius models. Toyota said last year it wanted to widen its customer base for the new Prius beyond the eco-aware and make it a "mainstream" American commuter vehicle.
In explaining the problem with the new model's brakes, Toyoda said that it may have occurred because designers and engineers "wanted to pursue more comfortable braking" for drivers.
The 2010 model of the car uses a two-stage braking system that includes regenerative braking to capture energy from the wheels, as well as conventional hydraulic brakes. On snowy or icy roads, however, the brakes can "seem to soften for a split second" when an anti-lock braking system kicks in, Toyoda explained.
The delay is not the same as brake failure, and there have been no reported accidents or injuries because of the problem, he said. But Toyoda and Shinichi Sasaki, vice president of quality control at Toyota, said at the press conference that complaints about the braking issue have been increasing in recent months.
"Giving the highest priority to safety of customers, we thought we simply cannot judge that there will never be accidents" caused by the brakes, said Sasaki, explaining why the recall was ordered.
Toyota, however, has come under pressure from the Japanese government, which said last week that it was looking into customer complaints about the brakes.
The chief of the recall department at the Ministry of Transport said Toyota should have taken action sooner. "If the company had paid more attention to consumers' viewpoint, it could have realized that there was a safety problem," Ryusuke Itazaki told reporters.
In the United States, regulators have also begun an investigation of complaints.
In January at Toyota factories in Japan, Toyota modified the software program for brakes on the Prius -- but it did so without notifying earlier buyers of the 2010 model that there might be a problem.
Toyoda was asked Tuesday about that delay and did not respond directly. Instead, he repeated what seemed to be his primary talking point for the press conference, which was that Toyota is not "all-knowing," that it does make mistakes, but that he personally is going to make sure that the company learns from its recent problems.
The press conference ran to near epic length -- one hour and 50 minutes -- as Toyoda seemed grimly willing to answer any question posed by a crowded room of reporters.
It was the second press conference in five days for Toyoda, who is a grandson of the company's founder. He has been criticized in recent weeks for not speaking in public as Toyota has gone through its largest-ever round of vehicle recalls and taken a public-relations pounding in Japan, the United States, Europe and China.
It appears now that Toyoda is focused on increasing his visibility. An op-ed by Toyoda was published in Tuesday's Washington Post, and he said Tuesday that he will soon travel to the United States to meet with government leaders, consumers and dealers.



Wow I thought a Prius would never have issues, I mean its a PRIUS!

__________________
"I have no convictions ... I blow with the wind, and the prevailing wind happens to be from Vichy"

Current
Monika '74 450 SL
BrownHilda '79 280SL
FoxyCleopatra '99 Chevy Suburban
Scarlett 2014 Jeep Cherokee
Krystal 2004 Volvo S60
Gone
'74 Jeep CJ5
'97 Jeep ZJ Laredo
Rudolf ‘86 300SDL
Bruno '81 300SD
Fritzi '84 BMW
'92 Subaru
'96 Impala SS
'71 Buick GS conv
'67 GTO conv
'63 Corvair conv
'57 Nomad

Sweet. I'll just keep driving my recall-free 28 year old W126 to work. The brakes work great too!

__________________
-diesel is not just a fuel, its a way of life-
'15 GLK250 Bluetec 118k - mine - (OC-123,800)
'17 Metris(VITO!) - 37k - wifes (OC-41k)
'09 Sprinter 3500 Winnebago View - 62k (OC - 67k)
'13 ML350 Bluetec - 95k - dad's (OC-98k)
'01 SL500 - 103k(km) - dad's (OC-110,000km)
'16 E400 4matic Sedan - 148k - Brothers (OC-155k)

its about time they blamed the rug, than the material that made the rug, than the car wash that cleaned the rug, than the owner not adjusting the rug, and now we find out its the americans on the assembly line who cant install the rug, than i read a guy took out the rug and the brakes and throttle still dont work - jz

WOW