When I took my 2009 Camry in for the recall, after mechanic checked the VIN I was told that nothing needed to be fixed on my car since my accelerator was “made in Japan”…does that mean that the only cars involved in the accelerator “incidents” had parts made in the U.S.? Is my car really “ok”?
We’ve had several posts on this, and it appears that if the VIN starts with “J”, for Japan, the throttle assembly was made by Denso, a major Japanese autoparts supplier to Toyota. These units were found to be Ok, and no recalll is issued.
Whether this will change in the future, I don’t know.
Thanks for that reply.
Does anyone know if all of the cars involved in the accelerator “incidents” had parts made in the U.S. rather than in Japan??? Also…where have all of these incdents ocurred? In one particular part of the country where the cars were all manufactured out of one plant? Or is it random?
The defective parts were actually made in Canada by a US compnay.
The distribution of the problems appears to be random across Canada and the US.
In terms of the recall(s) that have already been announced, Japanese-made Toyota products are not affected because the accelerator pedal components were made in Japan, by Denso Corp., and these parts are different from the parts made by an American supplier based in Elkhart, Indiana. That is the good news.
The bad news is that Toyota of America’s CEO, Mr. Lentz, has stated before Congress that he cannot guarantee that the existing recall(s) will resolve all Toyota issues regarding unintended acceleration. Many people believe that Toyota’s electronic “drive by wire” system has an inherent defect, and that this could have been the cause of some/many of the reported fatal incidents.
Unfortunately the 34 dead people cannot speak for themselves, and some of the Toyota/Lexus owners who testified before Congress made “questionable” or self-contradictory statements. As a result, more testing and evaluation will be necessary before anyone figures out this situation in its totality.
Since there is a very real possibility that there is a defect in your car that is not yet covered by a recall, you need to begin familiarizing yourself with the recommended procedure in the event that the car decides to accelerate on its own:
Press the brake pedal very firmly and keep it depressed
Shift to Neutral
Watch for vehicles in your blind spot as you steer toward the road shoulder
As soon as the car is safely stopped on the shoulder, shift to Park and apply the e-brake
Shut off the engine
If the engine races very loudly when you shift to Neutral, don’t worry about it. The electronic controls (supposedly) will not allow the engine to over-rev. And, even if the engine was ruined, wouldn’t that be preferable to a fatal accident?
Also, you should practice shifting to Neutral, so that you can do it without taking your eyes off the road.
The shift interlock mechanism should allow you to shift to Neutral by simply pushing the shift lever forward, without any danger of shifting to Reverse or Park.
That’s almost correct…the accelerator assemblies with the problem were made in Canada for U.S. manufactured Toyotas.
Someone here posted a link to a site wherein a pedal assembly from each of the manufacturers was disassembled and a comparison done. The Japanese ones are a totally different design and not prone to the problem.