Toyota will replace accelerator pedals on millions of its vehicles – but some people don’t believe that will fix the cars’ tendency to run away. The carmaker recalled 3.8 million vehicles back in September, citing faulty floor mats that interfered with the accelerator pedal.
According to ABC News, Toyota today said it will change the design of its accelerator pedals as well as the shape of the floor under the pedal, saying the remedy will “address the root cause of the potential risk for floor mat entrapment of accelerator pedals” in the affected cars.
Safety expert Sean Kane says that’s not enough, because the recall doesn’t address hundreds of runaway Toyota cases he has uncovered where owners insist the floor mats weren’t to blame. “What concerns me is that this recall still doesn’t get to the root cause of the non-floor mat sudden acceleration cases,” he said.
Kane’s firm, Safety Research & Strategies, says it discovered over 2,000 Toyota sudden acceleration cases involving 16 deaths and 243 injuries. Prius owner Elizabeth James said her car suddenly accelerated to 90 miles an hour when her foot was not even on the gas pedal. “I’m absolutely certain that in my situation, it was not the floor mats,” she said. She thinks that it may have been caused by a glitch in the electronic computer system that controls the throttle.
It’s all scary enough to make you think twice about buying a Toyota. Have any of you experienced this?
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