Toyota dealerships still offering affected vehicles

As you may know, a voluntary recall of 2.3 million Toyotas and Pontiacs was issued recently. The recall involves defective gas pedals that can stick over time and cause unintended acceleration.

What may surprise you is that Toyota dealerships are still offering affected vehicles on their lots. According to an interview between Kicking Tires and John Hanson, Toyota's national manager for environmental safety and quality, "as of today dealers are still selling vehicles involved in the recall."

Hanson said that each car involved in the recall is equipped with the faulty pedal system, but "the recall is the result of a wear issue, meaning it takes a certain amount of use before problems arise."

As a result, dealerships are limited in what they can do to address the recalled vehicles until they experience prolonged wear. Toyota has yet to develop a fix for the problem other than to replace the defective pedals with new pedals of the same type.

It is unclear whether Toyota is making new vehicles that have the same problem, but Hanson said that "Toyota’s first priority is explaining the issue to current customers and not future customers."


[source: Kicking Tires]