Toyota is recalling the Venza again.
While Toyota sales in the U.S. are trending up with the market, the Japanese auto giant can’t seem to shake the recall bug that’s haunted it for the past two years.
Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc. has just announced it is recalling nearly 700,000 cars and trucks due to a variety of potential safety-related problems. The recall comes barely a month after federal regulators opened an investigation into reports of fires in the driver’s side door of the maker’s popular Camry sedan and RAV-4 crossover.
As part of the new recall, Toyota said certain Camry and Venza vehicles from the 2009 to 2011 model-years will need to have their the stop lamp switches replaced. Approximately 70,500 Camry and 116,000 Venza vehicles are covered by this recall.
In addition, certain 2005 to early 2009 Tacoma pickups will be recalled to replace the steering wheel spiral cable assembly. Approximately 495,000 Tacoma vehicles are covered by that service action.
Due to the combination of steering wheel spiral cable design and characteristics unique to the Tacoma chassis, friction between the spiral cable and the retainer in the steering wheel spiral cable assembly may occur in some vehicles. Over time, that may result in loss of connectivity to the driver’s air bag module. If connectivity is lost, the air bag warning lamp on the instrument panel will remain illuminated after starting the vehicle and the driver’s air bag may be deactivated, preventing deployment in the event of a crash.
In the case of the Camry and Venza models, Toyota explained during installation of the contact-type stop lamp switch on one of the North American assembly lines, silicon grease may have reached the inside of the switch and caused an increase in electrical resistance. If this occurs, warning lamps on the instrument panel may be illuminated, the vehicle may not start, or the shift lever may not shift from the “Park” position. In some cases, the vehicle stop lamps may become inoperative.
Toyota is currently obtaining the necessary replacement parts. Once the replacement parts have been produced, it says it will notify owners to make an appointment with an authorized Toyota dealer to replace the stop lamp switch at no charge. The repair will take approximately 30 minutes depending upon the dealer’s work schedule.
No other Toyota vehicles are involved nor are these models distributed outside the North American market. Toyota is not aware of any accidents or injuries connected to the two recalls.
Toyota has been regaining sales momentum as production returns to normal after last year’s Japanese earthquake and tsunami, but the maker is facing a lot tougher competition than in years past and anything that further shakes its quality image could present a serious problem.
The maker had more vehicles recalled in 2009 and 2010 than any other brand in the U.S., but it slipped to second behind Honda last year, that Japanese maker suffering serious quality concerns of its own.
On the positive side, Toyota received a clean bill of health as part of a study by the National Academy of Sciences, earlier this year. The NAS ruled out unknown electronic gremlins as the cause of unintended acceleration problems with Toyota vehicles. The study put much of the blame, instead, on driver error.