For the better part of a year government safety investigators have probed the thousands of reports of sudden acceleration in some Toyota vehicles. In a preliminary report to Congress, they say they have uncovered no evidence of problems in the vehicles' electronics.
Drivers, for years, have reported instances in which their car accelerated on its own and failed to stop, even when they applied brakes. In some cases, these reports of sudden acceleration resulted in crashes.
Toyota has insisted from the start that, whatever the reason for these anomalies, they weren't caused by hiccups in the vehicles' sophisticated electronics. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), in its preliminary report, said it had reviewed 58 of the more than 3,000 submitted cases, and found no evidence of an electronics flaw.
Since last September Toyota has recalled about nine million vehicles to either replace floor mats or alter the design of accelerator pedals. The NHTSA report said investigators found only one case in which a floor mat trapped a gas pedal, pressing it to the floor, and no case in which the gas pedal became stuck.
Toyota was quick to embrace the preliminary report, saying it confirms the company's own findings. The carmaker said it had conducted more than 4,000 vehicle inspections in the aftermath of sudden acceleration reports and found no case in which the problem could be attributed to the electronics.
No conclusions
Federal investigators say it is too early to draw any conclusions, but note some of the cases reviewed so far may have been caused by driver error, in which the drivers unknowingly applied pressure to the accelerator, thinking they were pressing on the brakes.
This isn't the first time NHTSA has investigated this problem in Toyotas. After launching an investigation of reports of sudden acceleration in Toyotas during the early 2000s, NHTSA reported in 2004 that it was unable to find a cause for the problem.
At the time, the agency said it analyzed many of the cars involved in the mishaps and found nothing abnormal with the throttle controls. Once again NHTSA pointed to the driver. The agency said sudden surges are sometimes caused by drivers who are unfamiliar with their new vehicles.
Not just Toyota
While Toyotas have figured prominently in reports of sudden acceleration over the years, other models have also been affected.
"My wife pulled our 2004 V8 Jeep Grand Cherokee, into the day care to pick up our toddler and put the gear in park after coming to a stop," Vasanthi, of San Jose, Calif., wrote in March 2009. "The Jeep suddenly accelerated and shot forward, with her foot tightly on the brake, and went over a concrete block, through a fence and into the yard on the other side."
ConsumerAffairs.com has received sudden acceleration complaints over the years from a wide range of makes, including Kia, Jaguar, BMW and Ford. In fact, a December 2009 analysis of NHTSA complaints by Consumer Reports found Ford produced the second largest number of sudden acceleration reports after Toyota.
