I brake for recalls

By Jeff Rundles

The life of a car reviewer can be an interesting one, especially if it entails, lately, driving Toyota products. I recently drove the new 2010 Toyota Prius and during my one-week test drive it was recalled for potential braking problems. Of course, the acceleration problems identified (sort of) on many other models in the line had already been going on and the recall announced, so I began my Prius week feeling rather smug that I wouldn’t probably have to battle the car to keep the speed down below 100 mph. I ended the week worrying whether the Prius would stop, especially when it began to snow and the potential braking problem was said to be more problematic in slippery conditions.

The good news is that I didn’t have any problems at all. I did, in fact, love the Prius and before I heard about the braking recall I was all set to write that the new Prius had great brakes. They did, at least, work great for me, in many road conditions, but that didn’t stop me from worrying.

The sudden acceleration situation on up to nine Toyota models was first thought to be a bad design on the floor mats – apparently, the company said a few months ago, the floor mats had a bad design and could get entangled with the gas pedal and cause the cars to race. Later the company announced that it was more than floor mats; that the gas pedal assembly itself – a mechanical situation – was at fault, and now the recall involves replacing that assembly; essentially they are installing a “precision-cut steel reinforcement bar” into the assembly “thereby eliminating the excess friction that has caused pedals to stick in rare instances.” 

Then came the recall on the Prius, which apparently has experienced some gap in the response of braking when one hits the brake pedal, and this is said to be most pronounced on icy or snowy roads. The company is saying it is a software issue related to the ABS braking system.

(If you want to hear more about the recalls from Toyota and the vehicles included click here.)

But I wonder. I wonder whether the problems at Toyota run deeper.

I should also say that the recalls involve Toyota vehicles going back several years, in some cases to the 2004 and 2005 model years. I have been an automobile reviewer for more than 25 years, and I have been through several recalls on a variety of makes and models, and for the most part I have been satisfied that the procedures accomplished during the recalls fixed the problems.

But now I’m not so sure. I love Toyotas. I own an old Toyota, and I have been touting the line’s quality, workmanship, and sheer innovation for years and years. Every time I have driven a Toyota model in the last several years I have deemed it among the best, or indeed the best, in that particular class of vehicles, with the possible exception that a couple of years ago I said the venerable Sienna minivan needs an update to stay competitive (the new, 3rd-generation Sienna, a 2011 model, debuted at the Los Angeles Auto Show in December and was supposed to begin arriving at dealers this last month; I have not driven it.).   

Anyway, the point is that Toyota – and its Luxury Lexus division – make impressive cars. Heck, I have even said on numerous occasions that if General Motors simply built a car as nice as the Camry, they would never have gotten into hot water. I might burn my tongue on that remark.

More than any other carmaker in the broad sense over the last 30 years, it has been Toyota that has driven the marketplace. It is no accident that just about every car on the market today – Honda, Chevy, BMW, Kia, Hyundai, et al – looks like a Toyota.  And if you consider the current quality state of the industry – that there are really no bad cars for sale these days – that is because of Toyota. Toyota set such a pace with its fabled  “Toyota Way” policy – incremental improvement over time – that everyone else was forced to follow.

However, as the rest of the industry, particularly the American automakers, followed Toyota, Toyota itself, apparently, decided to follow the American way. Since about the year 2000, when Toyota was the #3 automaker worldwide in terms of sales, it decided it wanted to be #1. And it made it – just last November Toyota crossed that threshold. But they apparently found out that becoming #1, as GM had been for years, meant that they would do it the “GM Way” – cut corners, scrimp on the little things, share more platforms and parts, cover up defects, lobby its way out of problems.  It is the height of irony that at the very moment it became #1, Toyota had to begin fessing up to its sins. Now it is forced to apologize, grovel, admit mistakes, and it may never recover the momentum it had been slowing building for more than 30 years.

My biggest fear is that the problems with its vehicles go way beyond the relatively minor fixes they have proposed. I seriously doubt the rapid acceleration problem has to do with a “precision-cut reinforced steel bar.” Like the braking system on the Prius, I am convinced that a software glitch is at the heart of the matter, and this won’t be the first time we hear of this – on Toyotas or any other cars.

The modern automobile is a very complex computer, really, relying more and more on software to run all of the systems – from all of the convenience luxuries, like the climate control and sound systems, to the more important safety and operational systems, like the airbags, steering, braking and acceleration. There is a joke going around that if a car was made by MicroSoft it would crash three times a day – but it’s no joke in an automobile, and a car these days is probably as complex as anything MicroSoft makes.

I think rather than fixing the problem in Toyotas, the latest recalls for the brand are but the first in a series of major headaches for auto industry at large. I had a friend who bought a BMW 750 a few years ago – a very expensive car – and it was stranded on the highway more than once; they took it in for “re-booting.” My wife and I discuss this all the time, that if sun spots or WiFi viruses or whatever got into one of these modern technological marvels, we’d be stuck in the car unable to open the windows or the doors.

What can we do as consumers? Not much, really. Maybe “friend” your car on Facebook or “follow” it on Twitter and hope it understands that you are not techno-adverse.

Beyond that, I think we should all demand that our government, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, be less chummy with the industry and take its role as safety overseer more seriously. Since the Reagan Administration’s push for deregulation more than 20 years ago, funding for the NHTSA has been decimated.

Someone asked me the other day if you could still buy a new car with crank windows. Probably not because no one under 40 would know how to operate them. I mean, the younger set wouldn’t understand dial phones either.

Computers and all of the marvelous high-tech gadgets of our lives have really changed everything, and for the most part, for the better. But until someone comes up with an app to recognize and stop greed, expect the convenience to come at sometimes a steep price.