Supplier CTS, who produced the gas pedals now under recall from Toyota, tells Automotive News [sub] that it “built parts to the automaker’s specifications and says it has no knowledge that its parts were responsible for any accidents or injuries.” Sources at CTS tell AN that although they are working on a fix with Toyota and that new pedals have been tested and are shipping to Toyota plants, “this is their recall.” That would seem to contradict the facts of the case, as Denso, Toyota’s gas pedal supplier for Japanese-built models, has not been involved in the recall. According to Inside Line, the issue with pedal return damping that has plagued CTS-supplied, US-built Toyotas has not turned up in Denso-produced gas pedals.

Here is a round-up of the Toyota news that is flowing furiously out of all news outlets. Everybody, from the Wall Street Journal to Al Jazeera weighs in on the issue. Grab a cup of coffee. Or something stronger.

More recalls: Toyota announced late Wednesday that it must recall another 1.1 million vehicles “to address the risk that floor mats could trap accelerator pedals and cause bursts of sudden acceleration,” says Reuters. According to Reuters, “Toyota now has recalled nearly 6m vehicles for problems with the accelerators used across its lineup.” This is not counting the 2m vehicles in Europe that will be recalled.

EU recall official: Toyota Motor said today that it definitely will be expanding the recall to Europe, says AFP via Google. “Toyota will implement a recall in Europe,” said company spokesman Paul Nolasco. “We are still not sure about the models and the number of vehicles.” Initial estimates, published by The Nikkei [sub], spoke about another 2m cars in Europe. Plants will not be closed in Europe, because different parts already are being used in new production.

Recall spreads to China: China’s quality watchdog agency said “bu hao” to Toyota and ordered the recall of “at least 75,000 vehicles in China,” says London’s Times.

Toyota’s decision to suspend production and sales in North America of eight recalled models is sending shock waves through seismically sensitized Japan . Tokyo’s Nikkei [sub], usually not prone to sensationalist reporting and strong language, says today that “the fiasco is likely to have unfortunate consequences for the automaker’s image and earnings.”

According to the Nikkei, the eight models recalled for sticking accelerator pedals accounted for about 60 percent of Toyota’s North American sales last year. The production freeze will affect five North American plants. “A prolonged halt would inevitably influence Toyota’s bottom line,” warned an analyst at one major securities firm.

According to the Nikkei, “it is rare for an automaker to suspend production and sales because of a recall.” A Toyota spokesperson pointed out that this is not the first time for the company to make such a move. However, they acknowledged that the scale this time is unusually large.

The nightmare continues for Toyota. Full press release after the jump.

A quarter century ago, give or take a year, my brother Paul became the first in the family to drive a Toyota. A 1984 Toyota Celica-Supra. It was a true shifting of gears for the Lang Gang. Everyone up to that time had bought a GM. Mom and Dad drove Cadillacs (only one saw 100k). The eldest one had a Monte Carlo (a.k.a. Crapo) that didn’t see the road half the time. Second in line had a Regal (a.k.a. the dying diesel) that ended up stolen and trashed in the Grand Canyon. He actually felt sorry for the Canyon. Within three years both these Roger Smith specials were replaced with 1988 Celica GT’s. Great cars with no nicknames necessary. Three years later I had a Celica GT-S sitting on my driveway. Even better. Still no nicknames. By the end of the decade everyone in the family had a Toyota. But then things changed…

Toyota got hammered by another big recall today, with 2.3m vehicles called back for sticking accelerator pedals. According to Toyota’s release, this recall is

separate from the on-going recall of approximately 4.2 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles to reduce the risk of pedal entrapment by incorrect or out of place accessory floor mats. Approximately 1.7 million Toyota Division vehicles are subject to both separate recall actions.

How much more of this can Toyota take? One thing is for certain: ToMo has got to pull its current ad campaign which emphasizes the alleged quality of Toyota products. Cognitive dissonance might work in the short term but once consumers wise up they’ll never trust you again. Just ask GM.

Toyota’s head start on hybrid technology is easily the most significant advantage any one automaker holds over any other. It’s next closest competitor in hybrid offerings is Honda which is facing serious challenges as its Prius competitor, the Insight, is off to an incredibly weak start. To capitalize on this advantage, Toyota plans to up annual production of its hybrids to one million units by 2011. Despite reports that Toyota is refocusing on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles as a long-term option, Yoshihiko Tabei, chief analyst at Kazaka Securities believes:

For the foreseeable future, the focus of Toyota’s (low-emission car) strategy will be on hybrids, not electric or fuel-cell cars. Except for Honda, Toyota is facing little competition in hybrids and is set to put distance between itself and other automakers

With the Japanese Yen hovering around the 91 to 1 U.S Dollar exchange rate, a bullish VW focusing on boosting their market share in North America and Ford rising up, Toyota are probably a bit depressed. Business Week reports that, for the second year in a row, Toyota have resigned themselves to the notion that their North American division will post a loss this fiscal year. This will, almost certainly, have a knock-on effect in Toyota’s ability to turn a profit in the North American market, even after more cost cutting. “The finance company is having a solid year, so if you include that it will be so much easier to say positive things,” Yoshimi Inaba, Toyota’s North American chief executive, told reporters in Detroit. “We are still trying hard to improve (sales and manufacturing operations).”

TTAC Commentator PG writes:

Sajeev, In their December 2009 issue, Car and Driver has a great article about how extended warranties — such as those offered by U.S. Fidelis and others — are largely scams that deceive customers, don’t really cover the cost of repairs at all, and don’t give refunds at cancellation.

My parents own a 2002 BMW X5 4.4. They bought it from Carmax and have the extended warranty from that dealership. It’s a fantastic car, but it’s had some very costly repairs — thankfully, those have been covered in full or at least in part by Carmax’s warranty. The thing is, that warranty expires this month and can’t be renewed.

The ‘rents are thinking of getting an extended warranty for the Bimmer, but after reading that C&D story I’m pretty convinced they would be throwing their money away. My question: are there ANY extended warranties out there that they can use? What can they do to help avoid the full cost of repairs?

Buying a new/different car isn’t really an option right now, because they want to keep the X5 as long as they can. The car has about 80,000 miles on it and still runs well, except for the occasional hiccup, but those can be pretty pricey on a BMW.

If you or the best and brightest have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.

Automotive News China [sub] reports that Mercedes believes its Chinese-built cars are every bit as good as its German-built models. Ulrich Walker, Chairman and CEO of Daimler Northeast Asia says:

Yes, our cars here are exportable. There is no difference in quality with those made outside China.

But, as Bertel Schmitt reports, demand for luxury cars is strong enough in China that we won’t be seeing “Beijing, China” as the point of assembly on US-market Mercs.

Ben writes:

Hello Sajeev, my father owns a 2005 Ford Focus wagon. The car has 100,000 km’s on it (Canadian) and it has been well maintained. The car has never given him any issues and runs very well but the paint is in horrible condition. He purchased the vehicle after the lease was up and soon after the paint started peeling. He didn’t think too much of it, but recently it has gotten much worse… Ford did not apply primer on the car.

When buying a car, what do people really want to know about its reliability? Often: what are the odds it will turn out to be a lemon? And does it have a good shot at requiring no repairs at all?

Consumer Reports and J.D. Power have never answered these questions. They’ve only provided vague dot ratings that indicate how a car compares to the average for all cars. Even TrueDelta, which has been providing car models’ average repair frequencies, and not just dots, has not been directly answering these questions. Instead, car buyers have had to infer their odds of getting a lemon from the average repair frequency.

With the latest update to TrueDelta’s Car Reliability Survey results, released today, this will no longer be necessary. This update includes two new statistics: “Nada-odds” and “Lemon-odds.” From a car model’s Nada-odds, car buyers can learn how many cars out of a hundred required no repairs at all—nada—in the past year. And from its Lemon-odds they can learn how many out of a hundred had to go to the repair shop three or more times in the past year.

Earlier this week Chrysler talked about taking real steps to improve its quality. Today it’s GM. Mark Reuss, GM’s head of engineering, had this to say to the Detroit Free Press:

Reliability has been the Achilles’ heel of GM for my entire career,” he said, promising he would focus the company’s engineers around the world on fixing the problem. “It gets down to an individual engineer’s ability to find a problem and leadership’s ability to fix it,” he said, adding that too many GM engineers have been reluctant to point out problems because they were afraid they’d get the blame rather than praise for catching the mistake before customers suffered.

“There is no other area in the field of human communications that is as rife with disinformation as the story on Chrysler quality,” then Chrysler President Bob Lutz once famously said. Some things never change. According to today’s Detroit News, Chrysler is claiming that they will be a (though not “the”) quality leader by the end of 2012. They (and many other auto makers) have made similar claims before. Sometimes they achieve these goals. More often they don’t. Chrysler’s chances?

GM-volt.com‘s Lyle Dennis finds out that being one of the first 500 Americans to lease a MINI E has its downsides. Especially at $850/month lease cost. At around 5,000 miles, the troubles begin (OK, continue).

As the car is technically a mule or prototype, it is not production-ready and has had some issues. A month or two ago it began popping loudly into neutral whenever the accelerator was floored. The power electronics control unit was replaced and after that it almost never happened (it happened one more time). So I’m gentle with the accelerator.

The other day I was driving to work and went over an unexpected construction zone pothole. The car was jostled and suddenly it went into neutral. After that it could no longer be put into drive. Despite turning it on and off and moving the shifter in and out of drive neutral and park several times, that was it, dead. A tow truck was called and off it went to the dealership for a MINI “flying doctor” to come and repair it. After a few days I found out it was the power electronics control unit again which was again replaced.

Though we don’t have a [sub] for Consumer Reports‘ members-only data, their latest reliability survey summary has enough interesting tidbits to warrant a mention. Based on their subscriber base’s 1.4m autos, and using only data available for at least 100 examples of a given model, the survey is one of the better indicators of reliability out there (although when it comes to this topic there is no gospel). If nothing else, it’s hard to argue that CR’s reliability results aren’t influential, so sales are definitely at stake. The results? All Toyota/Lexus/Scion received ratings of “average” or better, an improvement over last year when CR found Camry V6, Tundra V8 4WD, and the Lexus GS AWD to be lacking. Honda/Acura and Subaru also showed extremely well where complete data was available, and Hyundai/Kia models were average or better except for Sedona and Entourage. Hybrids also scored surprisingly well, with nine gas-electrics scoring above average. But CR is making the biggest fuss over Ford, which they say is “on par” with the Japanese firms on all but a few truck-based models. The rest of the Detroit firms? Not quite so much.

It’s not on sale yet, but it will be. Any guesses?

ABC News reports that “General Motors Co. said Tuesday the rollout of its new 2010 Buick LaCrosse is being delayed for a few weeks due to quality concerns. Speaking to analysts and reporters during a conference call on August sales, GM’s vice president of U.S. sales Mark LaNeve said about 300 to 400 of the cars were shipped in August, but further deliveries are on hold until the company works out what it called ‘quality issues.'” RF just got off the phone with Buick Communications Manager Michelle Bunker, who categorically denied her boss’s assertion. “I don’t know what Mr. LaNeve said,” Bunker admitted. “But we’re shipping cars to dealers every day.” Well, we know what he said . . .

Better than what, you ask? Why, better than the previous Rubbermaid-meets-snap-together-model version, of course. Is it good enough? Somehow we aren’t feeling positive enough to predict that this will reverse the Caliber’s doomed-to-China fate. Hit the jump for the most positive spin possible on the Caliber’s improvements, courtesy of Chrysler PR.

To my mind, this is video is some of the better corporate communication to come out of Detroit in a while. It’s the perfect counterpoint to GM’s perception-gap whining, giving ordinary folks a glimpse inside the manufacturing line while highlighting quality control improvements. Only the choice of hosts is bit confusing; sure, Mike Rowe is the Robin Leach of blue collar America, but why invite the comparisons to, say, sheep castration?

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) low-speed bumper repair data [ download here] is good news for owners of the 2009 Honda Accord, Hyundai Sonata, Mazda 6 and Nissan Maxima: repair costs sank from 2007 levels. Moving beyond the headlines, the IIHS gives the Nissan a “poor” rating ($1,500 plus). And reports that the 2009 Chevrolet Malibu and 2010 Ford Fusion’s bumper repairs costs have soared. “Ford fit the Fusion’s front and rear with weaker bumper beams, and this had a big effect on the test performance,” IIHS Veep Joe Nolan’s PR flack writes. “The difference is easy to see in the 6 mph full rear test, which simulates a common parking mishap like backing into another vehicle. The Fusion’s bumper buckled, which caused it to underride the test barrier, resulting in twice as much damage as the 2007 model in the rear test. In the full front test, the Fusion had $2,529 in damage, more than any other vehicle.” Malibu misegos the jump.

Consumer organization Which? surveyed more than 84,000 drivers in The Land of Hope and Glory to establish which new cars suffered the fewest breakdowns, faults and niggles. In the process, they established which vehicles suffer the most breakdowns, faults and niggles. While we wonder about the exact definition of “niggle,” if not the survey’s complete methodology, here’s the bottom of the list. In the perverse dark lining in the silver cloud way of this site, see the winners after the jump. [thanks to G Arlt for the link]

The 10 least reliable new cars

112. Hyundai Santa Fe 82.2%

113. Jaguar S-type 81.2%

114. Volvo XC90 80.6%

115. Land Rover Freelander 80.1%

116. Ford S-Max 79.9%

117. Land Rover Discovery 79.5%

118. Alfa Romeo 159 79.0%

119. Jaguar XF 78.0%

120. Ford Galaxy 76.3%

121. Audi A5 75.8%

New GM starts . . . when, exactly? [Thanks to TTAC Fan for the link. Blog post courtesy camaro5.com]

Can we get a master list going of all the things people found wrong with the car that QA missed? Let’s keep the list down to just the facts. One of the more common issues found is loose bolts that hold back some type of fluid (ex: oil). I’ll try and go through the posts and edit this post adding everyone’s item making a master list people can print out to take with them and have checked out before they take the ride home. Should help everyone and I hope everyone can chime in here. Especially those that have their ride already and experience problems. Also, pls correct me if I have any mistakes in the list. Thanks.

Also note: This list is mainly a checklist for things wrong that a dealer can immediately fix. A broke transmission or bad driveshaft from dropping the hammer on this beast is something that they won’t know until it actually happens. Thank you for submitting all your issues.

TTAC Commentator and sometime author Niky Tamayo gives us insight into New GM’s new Carmaro’s tranny probs, thanks to this technical bulletin (first published on Camaro5.com).

And here I was giving people crap for complaining about weak Camaro gearboxes suggesting, in all likelihood, hoonery was the cause of failure. But when GM itself cites the torque handling capabilities of the Camaro transmission as being a gnat’s hair higher than the engine’s peak torque. Then you can’t help but wonder how many more will blow before the uprate the transmission. While GM is in no way obligated to build indestructible transmissions for street cars that it has to warranty, you’d think they’d either allow themselves a little more leeway in transmission strength, given the fact that anyone buying a V8 Camaro isn’t likely to NOT hoon the hell out of it, or program the traction control or launch control to limit torque on hard launches . . . y’know . . . just in case.

Fresh off a recent discussion at TTAC on the menace of brake dust, the NYT reports that the phenomenon made an impact on the recent JD Power Initia Quality Survey. Apparently consumers are complaining about brake dust in their IQS surveys, and it (among other things) knocked the Jag XF down a spot on the final standings. “A lot of the problems that might seem somewhat trivial from an engineering standpoint -– and brake dust is a good example –- are not necessarily trivial from a consumer’s standpoint,” says Powers’ David Sargent. “The perception is that the brakes are not performing properly, which is false, but in the consumer’s mind it is reality,”he explains. If brake dust isn’t an actual malfunction, why is it included in the IQS survey?

The issue: the optional HID headlights of the circa-2006 Prius are prone to turning off at random times, usually not at the same time. When this happens, they must be turned off, then on again. To fix the problem, Toyota dealers sometimes recommend replacing the entire HID system, at a cost of $1,700. Owners are launching a class action suit to force Toyota to cover these failures out of warranty. “Prius headlamp troubles could dim Toyota brand’s reputation,” writes Jean Halliday in yesterday’s Advertising Age and Automotive News. I’ve suggested that manufacturers pick up the cost of common problems out of warranty. That said, this story seems driven more by a media agenda rather than by the facts.

GM’s North American VP for quality, Rick Spina, latches on to the latest JD Power IQS with a blog post at Fastlane titled “What Quality Gap?” and a webchat inviting every pissed-off GM owner to bitch about their quality problems.

For all the naysayers out there … get this … in the J.D. Power & Associates 2009 Initial Quality Study, Cadillac, our flagship brand, improved by 19 percent since last year’s study and comes in third, just behind Lexus and Porsche. That’s pretty darn good considering brands typically improve around 5 percent a year. And Chevy, our volume leader, eliminates the quality gap to join company with very competitive import brands like Honda and Toyota. Simply put, the quality gap is history.

Oh really?

“Drivers who own [defective, shoddy and/or downright dangerous] Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep vehicles will retain their Lemon Law rights to compensation for defects under a deal between U.S. states and Chrysler LLC’s new owners, [Florida] Attorney General Bill McCollum said Wednesday.” And so the AP reassures ChryCo’s remaining half dozen or so prospective retail customers that they can once again buy with confidence from the bankrupt, federally-sponsored zombie automaker. More specifically, Fiat Group SpA has agreed to stand behind ChryCo crap. Not that all Chrysler’s products are crap, obviously. Well, perhaps not that obviously . . .

TrueDelta has once again updated the results of its Car Reliability Survey. Based on over 10,000 responses for the first time, the new results cover owner experiences through March 31, 2009. Elsewhere, results continue to be based on an April 2008 survey. Thanks to these prompt quarterly updates, TrueDelta can provide reliability stats on new or redesigned models sooner, and then closely track cars as they age. Among the highlights: the 2009 Audi A4 has required 37 repair trips per 100 cars per year—similar to the benchmark Honda Accord. The implication: most of these cars will not require any repairs in their first year.

Consumer Reports has released its annual auto issue and scorecard, and the results are hardly shocking. CR loves them some Toyota, Honda and Subaru, singling out the big H as building the most reliable lineup of vehicles (Element excepted). Toyota came in second, with the Prius winning top spot in CR’s new “value” ranking. Only Toyota’s Yaris and FJ Cruiser were unable to earn a “recommend” grade from the report. Mercedes has improved its reliability, reckons CR, but European brands are still lagging. On the American front, Ford is singled out as the high point among the American automakers, as “some Ford models now rival their competitors” from Japan. Too bad they’re the F150 and Flex, which compete for a shrinking market segments. Unfortunately, that’s as good as the news gets for Detroit.

I admit, I have a strange fascination with watching cars crash. And though large, heavy cars can cause some of the most dangerous accidents, there’s something particularly satisfying about watching a small car hit the wall (or get hit by a large, heavy car). As an American I feel hard-wired to expect smaller cars to explode into a million pieces of tin foil and socialized medicine every time I see one making a slow-mo impact in a crash test. But the glory days of “hoo boy!” moments in compact crash tests seem to be coming to a close. Toyota’s tiny iQ just logged a five-star rating from Europe’s NCAP crash testers, and as this video shows, the drama just never shows up. A cocoon of airbags, some brilliant crumpling and surprising side-impact resilience take a lot of the “sucks to be that dummy” entertainment value from the iQ test video. Oh well. I guess it’s time to move on to watching Chinese car crash tests. Schadenfreude doesn’t feed itself.

Dear Colleagues,

Yesterday, Consumer Reports announced results from its 2008 Annual Auto Reliability Survey. Subscribers to Consumer Reports are surveyed each year about the vehicles in their households. Predicted reliability for new models is based on the previous three model years for the same model.

This year Chrysler LLC vehicles trailed the industry average and dropped in ranking when compared with last year’s study. The decline in our ratings is based on the results for 2008 model year vehicles that were built about one year ago.

Based on our aggressive focus on warranty claim rate reduction, we know that the cars we are building today have a much higher standard of overall quality. Having said that, due to the three-year window, Consumer Reports ratings are slow to change.

The results tell us a few important things about our approach to quality over the last few years:

* Our overall reliability is below industry average.
* We do have some vehicles that scored above average for reliability.
* We have a corporate-wide commitment to quality that is well on its way and essential to get Chrysler back on the path to sustainability and profitability.

Summary of Results

Predicted reliability is Consumer Reports’ forecast of how well models currently on sale are likely to perform. The Chrysler brand is ranked 32 out of 34 brands and dropped 13 positions compared with the 2007 rankings. Dodge ranked 30 out of 34 and dropped five positions. Jeep ranked 28 out of 34, which is the same as last year.

There were a couple of highlights in the Chrysler results. The Dodge Caliber and Jeep Patriot were ranked above industry average and were considered the best models of the company’s brands.

Clearly, we are not satisfied with our overall results and continue to work aggressively in new ways to improve every aspect of customer satisfaction as we are committed to deliver products that meet consumers’ needs. Since the vehicles in this survey were built, a tremendous amount has been accomplished. We have formed 18 new, cross-functional teams to correct quality problems by vehicle system. Our Customer Satisfaction Teams (CST) are comprised of more than 250 people who have helped reduce quality issues since January. We are continuously measuring our progress and improving the way we work to accelerate our improvement.

In addition to the CSTs, the development processes and testing procedures put into place nearly five years ago have helped with the high-quality launch of the 2009 Dodge Ram. For example, before the 2009 Dodge Ram went on sale, nearly 6.5 million customer-equivalent miles were logged by Dodge truck engineers. The 2009 Ram went through more than 200 hours of wind noise and aerodynamic evaluations, and engineers conducted approximately 40,000 hours of full-scale vehicle and system testing for durability and reliability of the vehicle.

While we expect our company-wide quality initiatives to be successful, we will continue our focus on the needs of our current customers and the priorities of those consumers who are considering future vehicle purchases. Thank you for your hard work and dedication to quality improvement. With all of us having the same focus of “Customer First” and “Quality … Period,” we will continue to accelerate our commitment to quality and strive to meet the needs of our customers.

Sincerely,

Doug Betts
Vice President and Chief Customer Officer

[thanks to you know who you are]

After David Champion, head of Consumer Reports‘ auto testing, presented this year’s reliability results, I asked two simple questions. 1. What month were most surveys returned (i.e. how old are the data)? 2. What problem rates do the dots represent? Or, to keep it as simple as possible, what was the average problem rate for a 2008 car? Unfortunately, Mr. Champion did not know the answer to either question. He could only respond that the surveys went out in “the springtime,” and that the dots are relative. As if the actual problem rates they represent were of no consequence. In fact, both things matter. The truth about CR, as we’ve noted here: before: 1. The data are already about five months old, and will be 17 months old before they are updated again. 2. The differences between the dots for a 2008 model are about one problem for every thirty cars. But, since even the head of CR’s auto research doesn’t know these facts, it should come as no surprise that their millions of subscribers haven’t a clue. And then things got ugly…