WASHINGTON - Complaints
of sudden acceleration in Toyotas repaired under recalls have nearly
doubled in the past two weeks, according to an Associated Press analysis
of government data.
The complaints from 105
drivers raise questions about whether Toyota's repairs will prevent the
cars from speeding up on their own or if there is another reason for the
problem.
Toyota has said it is
confident in its repairs and has found no evidence of other problems, such
as faulty electronics. The automaker did not immediately comment Wednesday
on the latest complaints.
The National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration said it was contacting owners who have
complained about their repaired vehicles. David Strickland, NHTSA's
administrator, said in a statement Wednesday the agency has found
"several instances in which a dealer made mistakes in applying one of
the recall remedies."
He said NHTSA has
discussed the issue with Toyota, which is trying to improve instructions
to dealers.
Toyota has recalled more
than 8 million vehicles worldwide since October over complaints that gas
pedals can become sticky or trapped under floor mats.
An AP review of a NHTSA
database found reports of repaired cars continuing to accelerate on their
own had jumped to 105 since March 4, when the government reported 60 such
complaints.
The complaints are
submitted online or through a NHTSA hot line and have not been
independently verified.
In many of the comments,
which can be filed anonymously, owners said the sudden acceleration issue
reappeared only days after their cars were fixed at their local
dealership.
"I went in for the
recall and it seems there is a worse problem now," wrote the owner of
a 2008 Toyota Tundra in Boynton Beach, Florida, who reported unwanted
acceleration in early March. "I truly believe this is an electronic
problem."
John Moscicki, of Lake
Oswego, Oregon, told the AP his 2007 Camry accelerated on its own five
times before he got the vehicle fixed under the floor mat recall last
month.
On March 4, his repaired
Camry took off from a standing stop on the freeway and accelerated to 50
mph (80 kph) before Moscicki managed to stop it by shifting into neutral,
hitting the brake with his left foot and pulling back the gas pedal with
his right.
"It just went to the
floor like some other system had control of it," said Moscicki, who
raced high-performance sports cars and previously owned a Porsche
restoration business.
His Toyota dealer had the
Camry for a week, and Toyota sent in a field engineer to examine the car
without finding anything wrong. Moscicki said he had planned to give the
vehicle to his college-age daughter but now intends to get rid of it.
"I wouldn't let her anywhere near this car," he said.
The safety concerns are
difficult to pinpoint because they could be related to any number of
factors, said Diane Steed, who served as NHTSA administrator during the
Reagan administration.
Besides telephone
interviews with owners, the agency will look at how dealers fixed the
cars, whether the problems involved common parts or the same manufacturing
facilities or whether human error might be involved, she said.
Steed, who led the agency
during a lengthy review of sudden acceleration complaints in Audi sedans,
said there is no specific threshold that would automatically lead the
agency to demand that Toyota, or any other automaker involved in a recall,
come up with a new fix.
"It's really an
engineering judgment call," she said. "The real challenge is not
so much the numbers but digging to get to the bottom of what is the
problem."
___