Massive Toyota Recall
Monday, 1. February 2010
Whilst the world’s biggest car manufacturer flounders around trying to find out why their cars have a habit of accelerating out of control and then not stopping with horrendous consequences, General Motors, in the US, is capitalising out of Toyota’s problems by offering incentives for people to move out of their Toyota and into a GM car offering such incentives as 5 year interest free finance, cashbacks and help to extract themselves from leases. The problem is starting to spread. Already 2.3 million cars have been recalled in the US where the fault has been blamed on accidents involving Toyotas. A press release from Toyota has explained that cars in the UK and across Europe will also be recalled but no indication has been given as to the scale of the recall. They say that the fault is worn accelerator linkage causing the accelerator not to return to the idle position or return very slowly. In the US they started by dismissing the problem as a problem with the car mats stopping movement of the accelerator pedal. Unfortunately, other manufacturers will jump on the problems faced by Toyota in a bid to gain ground and make more sales. It’s a dog eat dog industry. By Graham Hill
