Prius Next On The Recall List

Image via Wikipedia

With so many cars being recalled by Toyota, it makes you wonder how they passed quality control.  Toyota vehicles were known for quality and they held their value well.  I think that Toyota owners will still stick with Toyota through the recalls.

Toyota President apologizes… again, calls situation a “crisis” *UPDATE

Fifteen days after Toyota announced a recall of 2.3 million vehicles in the U.S. for sticking accelerator pedals, the company’s president and grandson of its founder made a formal apology at an evening news conference in Japan on Friday night (early morning EST). Akio Toyoda has been largely silent during the last two weeks as his company struggles to contain the fallout from recalls affecting over nine million vehicles on multiple continents. The only other time he’s spoken on record was during an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last Friday when he told a Japanese interviewer, “I am deeply sorry.” What’s the reason for today’s remarks? Toyoda told the audience of press, “”I came out here today because I would not want our customers to spend the weekend wondering whether their cars are safe.”

The company president also announced that a committee would be created to look at Toyota’s quality issues and address them going forward, something his predecessor, Katsuake Watanabe, also did back in 2006. Finally, in regards to braking issues with the 2010 Prius revealed yesterday, Toyoda said the company would soon announce how it plans to address them. Despite reports coming out of Japan to the contrary, there has been no official confirmation from Toyota that the new Prius will be recalled. Both the Japanese and U.S. governments have also opened investigations on the Prius and Toyota has pledged its cooperation.

We also learned yesterday of brake issues in the Ford Fusion Hybrid and Mercury Milan Hybrid after Consumer Reports experienced a sudden loss of braking power in a Fusion Hybrid and contacted the automaker. The issue sounds similar to what some owners are experiencing in the 2010 Prius, though we’ve only heard of this one instance and Ford has already responded with a TSB to repair the issue with a software upgrade.    –more