Posted on 09/29/2009 1:40:56 PM PDT by Doogle
After the U.S. government put out a warning to owners of Toyota and Lexus vehicles about safety problems tied to removable floor mats, the Japanese automaker announced that it will recall 3.8 million vehicles sold since 2004.
According to the consumer alert, the floor mats of the affected vehicles could interfere with the accelerator pedal and cause a crash.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Snaps on the corners.
Ummm, common sense, floor mats do this.... DUH.
I’ve encountered this with aftermarket floor mats.
Is that the Toyota Audi? Hmmmm.
Floor mats?
You’ve got to be kidding!
When my floor mats get bunched up under my feet, they get tossed in the trash.
Better recall Explorers too... because that happened to me.
BS....they are outselling GM...that’s what it’s really about.
Can’t they just throw them out? After a decade my floormat got all curled up and started grabbing the pedals, it wound up in the dumpster.
either one
My uncle used to deliver groceries for a local market. Once he totaled a GMC Delivery Van because a cantaloupe rolled out of a customer’s order and under his brake pedal. Has Obama recalled GMC Delivery Vans yet?
“Has Obama recalled GMC Delivery Vans yet?”
No...but I think he is having that cantaloupe investigated!
My daughter had that problem w/ a 2008 Mustang.
She almost wrecked when the throttle stuck. Scared the wee-wee out of her.
Took it back to the dealer. It happened to the mechanic. He came back from the test drive shaking.
The aftermarket floormats were interfering w/ the pedal.
Maybe that doesn't work as well with automatics.
Just as soon as they remove the two contingencies from their job offer to me, I am ordering my Prius! To hell with Government Motors!
No, but I understand a recall of cantaloupes is in the near future!
Kill the engine on a newer car you lose power brakes and steering.
(not completely but very difficult to push the pedal and turn the wheel)
Most cars will lose power assist when you kill the ignition. The best thing to do would be to brake (fighting the acceleration), put the car in neutral, and coast to a stop and then kill the ignition. Most cars manufactured in the last 10-15 years have rev limiters anyway, so you aren’t going to blow the engine by redlining it like that. I keep wondering to myself why the driver of that Lexus that crashed a few weeks back didn’t think of that.
On a side note, I have one of the affected vehicles, and there’s absolutely no way this could apply to me. It would be nice if there were more details.
In a world run by trial lawyers.....
Is this all about the idiot that didn’t know that turning off the ignition or shifting to neutral would stop the car?
I have 2005 and a 2006 Scion xBs. They have little hooks to hold the mats down and away from the pedals. But the mats slide off of these hooks, and they will ride up and interfere.
This happened to me on the FDR drive in New York City. Fortunately, I had read about this problem the week before (Thanks FreeRepublic!), so I knew the problem was the mats. I just reached down, grabbed the mat, and threw it into the back seat... problem solved.
Of course, since I was driving a Scion xB, the only thing that happened when the pedal stuck down to the floor was a change in the pitch of the engine. There was no sudden burst of speed forward, since the squirrels up front were already running as fast as they could to keep me at 60 mph. In a car with a little bit of power, however, this could have been a real problem, especially if it took the driver a few seconds to figure it out.
No, but throwing it in neutral works. Had to do it this morning on the way to work. The new floor mats in my 2005 Silverado slip rather easily and the accelerator got stuck on the mat. The floor mats are on their way back to Walmart where I bought them. The next ones I buy will have good carpet grips on the underside. No more cheap junk.
As long as it wasn't an eggplant... That would be raaaaaacist!
In my last car, my floormat would accasionally interfere with operation of the accelerator pedal. However, the car was totaled not by this interference, but by some idiot in a giant pickup who rear-ended me.
Here’s the 911 call of the crash that caused this. The poor girl that screams in the end was 13. There’s no excuse for this and lawsuits should be severe.
How does failure to maintain your vehicle sound? If these floor mats are sooooo.... bad, then replace them. There is no excuse for stupid people failing to maintain their own vehicles.
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