Business Wire reports that the law firm of Sheldon J. Schlesinger, P.A. in Fort Lauderdale, Florida has hit Lexus and corporate parent Toyota with a class action lawsuit relating to the ES350's airbag sensors. According to Lexusdefect.com, "many owners have found that these sensors are intermittingly turning off thereby creating a situation where… the air bag would not deploy." The lawyers also maintain that "company spokespersons have stated that there is a problem, but they do not know how to fix it." Without citing any statistical evidence to support the allegation, they "believe that there is strong evidence this problem effects every single ES 350" and warn "if you have not experienced this defect, that does not mean it is not present." They aren't asking much– just for Lexus to recall and re-purchase the cars at their full cost, give full refunds to lessors and "compensatory damages for all costs and loss of value."
11 Comments on “Lexus Faces Class Action Lawsuit Over ES350 Airbags...”
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Well, if the 2007 ES350 is suspect, this has to affect the 2007 Camry as well. My gut feeling is this suit has no merit, because Toyota has used the same basic system since 2004 in both the Camry and ES 330/350. I have two Camrys, an ‘04 and an ‘05, BTW.
I follow the Camry “problems” boards on edmunds.com, and I have seen NO ONE complain about this, even though there are plenty of gripes about alleged transmission hesitation, for both the 4-cylinder and V6 models. Then there are the GM fanboys/trolls in there rooting for Toyota to go down in flames, but that’s another story…
Those weight-sensing airbag on/off switches can be sensitive around the threshold of weight for very small adults, or if people don’t sit up straight in the seat (no feet out the window please), so I can see someone finding an “issue” with this.
D**chebag lawyers.
So, has anybody actually been injured by a non-functioning airbag sensors? I thought not.
I’m sure the selection of the ES350 has nothing to do with the fact that it is the preferred whip of septugenarians.
Remember the good old days when the ambulance chasers waited for the ambulance?
There was a guy on my Mazda3 forum saying that the “passenger air bag off” light would stay on sometimes when his tiny girlfriend was in the passenger seat, so I guess I should find my own ambulance chaser and sue Mazda. While I’m at it, I should sue the morons that put children in car seats in the front, and the legal system that favors these morons and forces manufacturers to try to make everything idiot-proof, since it’s making everything more expensive for me.
Recall & repurchace isn’t happening, he’s shooting for the moon and will hit a tree instead. If it really was a problem, he’d be campaigning for NHTSA to issue a safety recall to replace these switches instead of trying to milk the company.
…One nation, under lawyers, with liberty and justice for a few.
I agree thi is probably a red herring driven by a blood thirsty lawyer.
That said, Toyota does have a recent history of dragging their feet on quality issues (eg. engine sludge issue)that forced the blood thirsty lawyers into class action lawsuits
I haven’t heard a soul complain about this problem. In fact, before today I had never heard about this period. If this was true, then in my internet travels of sites far and wide I would have heard ES owners complaining about this, and likely an NHTSA investigation underway already.
I concur that this is just another frivolous lawsuit.
From discussions I’ve had with people in the car-safety industry, I can guarantee that this has indeed happened.
Sensors are an incredibly complicated piece of software operated in extremely fierce and unpredictable environment. It’s practically impossible to make them work correctly all the time.
The airbag industry is absolutely rife with lawsuits. Even when an airbag works exactly as intended, lawyers still get involved, because airbags do cause minor injuries while blocking big ones, making an opening for the lawyers.
But we’re talking about a weight sensor in the passenger seat that determines whether the front passenger airbag is disabled (will not deploy) or is enabled (can deploy). This can’t be as complicated as the “regular” sensors that must decide in a split second whether or not to deploy the applicable airbags.
It’s just a pointless lawsuit like most of them. You find someone disgruntled, and you file a lawsuit. I would have expected a lawsuit on the Camry’s crappy transmission before anything that I’ve heard ZERO about (and by the way, it is a crappy tuning for the tranny, but not lawsuit or even recall worthy).
I’m sure though, that if someone sued GM over this, everyone on this board would be commenting on GM’s crappy quality and unsafe vehicles….