The US National Highway and Traffic Safety Agency (NHTSA) will not conduct an additional investigation of unwanted and unintended acceleration of model year 2007 Lexus ES350 vehicles and model years 2002-2003 Lexus ES300 after an extensive technical review of the issue, including interviews with consumers who had complained of unwanted acceleration.
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NHTSA concluded that “…the only defect trend related to vehicle speed control in the subject vehicles involved the potential for accelerator pedals to become trapped near the floor by out-of-position or inappropriate floor mat installations.”
Toyota Motor Sales USA has has begun mailing letters to owners of affected Toyota and Lexus models regarding the potential for an unsecured or incompatible driver’s floor mat to interfere with the accelerator pedal and cause it to get stuck in the wide-open position.
The move follows a well publicised case in which an off-duty California policeman was killed along with several others after the throttle apparently stuck open in a Lexus loaner car borrowed from a San Diego dealership.
Toyota’s letter, which the automaker said complied with the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act and had been reviewed by NHTSA, also confirmed that no defect exists in vehicles in which the driver’s floor mat is compatible with the vehicle and properly secured.
Toyota said this was the sixth time in the past six years that NHTSA has undertaken such an exhaustive review of allegations of unintended acceleration on Toyota and Lexus vehicles and the sixth time the agency had found no vehicle based cause for the unwanted acceleration allegations.
“The question of unintended acceleration involving Toyota and Lexus vehicles has been repeatedly and thoroughly investigated by NHTSA, without any finding of defect other than the risk from an unsecured or incompatible driver’s floor mat,” said TMS senior vice president Bob Daly.
“Toyota takes public safety seriously. We believe our vehicles are among the safest on the road. Our engineers are working hard to develop an effective remedy that can help prevent floor mat interference with the pedal. As soon as it is ready, we will notify owners of the relevant models to bring their vehicle to a dealer for the necessary modification at no charge,” Daly added.
In the recently completed investigation, NHTSA conducted extensive testing on a Lexus ES350 including procedures to test for electronics problems.
Until Toyota develops a remedy, it is asking owners of affected vehicle models to take out any removable driver’s floor mat and not replace it with any other mat.
The recall affects 3.8m vehicles.
