The NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) recently sent Toyota a fine of $16.4 Million because the automakers “[Failed] to alert officials of possible accelerator pedal issues in a timely fashion.”Any fines issued by a government program can be appealed for change, but Toyota has decided to not contest this fine. They believe that responsibility is the best way to get their loyal customers and the US government back on their side. Ray La Hood, Secretary of Transportation, said that “Toyota has accepted responsibility for violating its legal obligations to report any defects promptly.” In response to this concern, Toyota has just recently implemented the SMART response team.

The automotive company, over the last several months, is reported by bloomburg.com to have lost over $2 billion in sales. While this is a very large chunk of their profit, Toyota believes it is a small price to pay for the recall woes it has been going through. It seems like with this fine being paid, the light will finally seem to appear at the end of this tunnel.

However, business is not all bad at Toyota. Nikkei English News, a Japanese media source “respected around the world”, stated they are expecting Toyota to report a $531 million dollars in profit. There is no doubt that many of this money will be going towards fast response teams like SMART that will improve Toyota’s ability to react to the types of issues that caused the recalls.

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With the now public Sienna recall in the mix, consumers can be somewhat confused about what is happening and what they need to do about it. In this article, we will strive to answer any questions/concerns you may have about this recent issue. The issue that Toyota is solving in this recall is in the cables that secure the spare tire to the vehicle. When exposed to extreme conditions (i.e. snow on roads, excessive salt on pavement, sea spray) the cables would start to corrode and, in extreme cases, the tire would fall off creating a road hazard for other drivers. The recall is completely voluntary, so those drivers who do not need to worry about sea spray or salt on roads do not have to have the cables replaced, although Toyota highly recommends it for safety reasons.

While the word “recall”, especially of late, has been associated with catastrophic results, this problem is fairly minor. Even so, Toyota is responding quickly to ensure the satisfaction of their loyal customers.

Any Sienna owners can take their car to the nearest Kansas City Toyota Dealership to get a preliminary inspection while Toyota works on a lasting solution to the issue.

The 2010 Sienna still stands as one of the best selling van out there. Drivers all over the country love its fierce design, comforting interior, and fuel efficient engine. Don’t let this minor setback diverge you from the great product the Sienna really is!

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Ever since Toyota first began to experience troubles with recalls, their biggest priority has been making it up to their loyal customers. One change Toyota has made to make things right is a SMART response team. According to Toyota’s national blog, “The rapid-response Swift Market Analysis Response Team will attempt to contact customers within 24 hours of receiving a complaint of unintended acceleration to arrange for a comprehensive on-site vehicle analysis..“ For anyone who has had trouble dealing with problems in other companies, they can breath a breath of relief when a Toyota representative gets back to them after just one day. Plus, the on-site analysis will really give the customer immediate feedback from the company.

Engineers from all over the company will assist in the SMART analysis. That includes American and Japanese minds, so Toyota can nearly guarantee your issue can be solved between the many minds working on your problem.

Dealers all around both the US and Japan have been informed about the changes, and the information has been passed on to them. For more information on the program, or to set up a SMART analysis, just swing by your Kansas City Toyota Dealerand ask one of the sales representatives.

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[April 2, 2010] Today at the New York International Auto Show, consumer’s got the first glimpse at several new production models for the Scion brand. One of which, the 2011 Scion tC, really shook up the showroom floor. With its new redesign, the tC has many new options and features that make it the sports coupe for the younger generations. With the new body design, however, it gave the usually fierce and bold look of Scion a more elegant and simple look. According to Toyota’s press release, the second gen tC chock full of Toyota OEM Parts will hit dealerships all around the country later this fall.

Not only has the exterior changed, however. The engine, the true heart of the vehicle, has been powered up in every way possible. With a new 2.5 liter 180 HP engine with 173 pound-feet of torque, it is sure to get you where you’re going fast. Compare that to the 262 engine in the 2010 model and it seems Toyota has made a pretty big jump.

The interior, while it may seem a little drab with the overpowering gray, shows many interesting ideas and design concepts. It can be expected to come with all the standard Toyota Accessories consumers have come to expect from Toyota, and nothing too out of the ordinary will pop out. You see little hints of the aggressive nature of Scions, but the whole idea has been tamed and refined to create this new sports-coupe.

It seems like even during the midst of recall woes, Toyota can still come out with top notch vehicles that get better and better with every generation.

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In the April issue of Consumer Reports, readers of the largely popular and influential magazine can see a list of the top ten cars of 2010 in ten categories. Over the years, this list has become a big honor for the winners, and the list can usually show who has wowed the consumers. This year, the top ten list included two Toyota vehicles: the 2010 redesigned Prius, which won in the “Green Car” category, and the Lexus LS 460L, which came out on top in the “Best Overall Car” category. This is a huge honor for the company, and it shows that Toyota still stands for quality vehicles.

In the last couple years, the Prius has always been at the top of the fuel efficiency group. This year, with the added solidity and upgrades that went into the 2010 model, Toyota guaranteed its Prius would come out on top. For the seventh year in a row, the Prius’ 44mpg clenched victory in the Consumer reports top ten.

The Lexus LS 460L is a vehicle that features all the best options in a luxury sedan. Some of its more prominent features are a sleek navigation interface with live traffic capabilities, a music storing hard-drive, and a self-parking system. And that’s just on the inside. Under the hood, the 460L boasts a 4.6 Liter V8 engine that provides 380 max horsepower, AWD, and, of course, super low emissions compared to some of its competitors. In the review, the Toyota parts in the Lexus LS 460L received a staggering 99 out of a possible 100 points.

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Recently in the news, Jim Sikes, a Prius owner in NY, has greatly publicized an incident in which his vehicle experienced unintended acceleration. Partnering with the NHTSA, Toyota has mounted a full scale investigation of the issue, and some of the facts just aren’t making perfect sense, and the investigation is revealing there is more to the incident than meets the eye.

According to Sikes’ complaint and his 911 call, the acceleration pedal on his Prius stuck. That, coupled with an apparent brake system failure, caused his Prius to accelerate to 95+ mph for approximately 23 minutes. During the 911 call, he stated his “gas pedal was stuck and wouldn’t budge.” The operators talked him through the incident, telling him to apply the foot brake and emergency brake, but none of the solutions seemed to work.

As most people know, there have been issues with floor mats catching the accelerator pedals and causing unintended acceleration. Oddly, however, the Prius was not included in the floor mat recall. This incident, as imagined, has sent huge red flags up for Toyota. Their highest priority right now is to attend to every complaint swiftly and accurately to avoid any more problems with their customers. But, Toyota investigators want to be sure that this incident is legitimate.

For the last week, investigators have been running tests on Sikes’ Prius. Overall, they are saying the results are ‘inconsistent’ when testing said vehicle. The team has been unable to cause the unintended acceleration that Sikes describes, and the data stored by the Prius itself is a little odd. The records are displaying patterns that match with short and quick pumps of the brake pedal, instead of the solid and firm pressing that Sikes claimed to be performing, and the brake pads are not quite as damaged as one would expect. Instead of being completely gone, the front brakes still have some material on them and the back brakes are barely burnt at all.

Toyota is now beginning to dismiss the issue. While they are not outright debunking Sikes’ report, the investigators have serious doubts about the legitimacy of the incident. They do believe the officer reporting to the scene’s story about smelling rubber, but the vehicles backup systems and diagnostic tests are all coming back fine.

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By the year 1989, Toyota had already established itself as a formidable competitor in the US Automotive Industry. With the 1989 Camry’s, Echo’s, and Solara’s, Toyota had many options for many different consumers. But, in the year 1989, it seemed like something was missing. There was just something that was holding Toyota back from the global success they were destined to achieve.

And so, Toyota unveiled the Lexus. A luxury line, the 1989 Lexus “LS” was top of its class, and changed the course of the automotive industry forever by creating a comfortable, classy, and reliably automobile. The vehicle, surprisingly, was a secret flagship effort by Toyota to create a new luxury sedan. So, what was so “new” about the codenamed F1 than other Toyota models? Well, because of the freedom given to the design team, the F1 did not feature any existing Toyota parts or platforms! Here was a brand new, never before seen vehicle that had better aerodynamics, a quieter cabin, and, foreshadowing Toyota’s future, it had great fuel efficiency for its time – approximately 25 mpg and lasted for years to come.

Next in the Lexus timeline was the Lexus LS 400 in 1990, which had a ton of new features; those features including power steering, disk brakes, and a newly adjusted suspension. In its first year of sales, Toyota sold 63,594 LS 400’s, and it could only get better from there. The next model, the ES 300, became Lexus’ top selling model.

The 2000’s, as most Toyota customers are aware of, have been very good for the Lexus market. Varying from new full sized sedans with LCD displays, to sleek hybrid concepts, this century has harbored an explosion of Lexus innovations and stylistic changes. In 2006, right after the release of the F-Performance marquee, The Lexus line sold approximately 475,000 models worldwide.

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In light of the recent recalls Toyota has been through lately, many customers have been very upset, and for good reason. For years, Toyota was viewed as the supreme car company, releasing new, reliable, and very secure/safe vehicles. And, in the eye of the consumer, many of the high profile faces in the company haven’t given many answers to worried drivers. This week, however, many questions were answered when both Jim Lentz, Toyota of America CEO, and Akio Toyota, owner and head man of the company, arrived at Congress to answer questions politicians presented to them. The whole overtone of the questioning was apologetic, while both speakers have an optimistic view of the future, and both expressed full co-operation with law makers.

If you know anything about Akio Toyoda, you know that when he became the President he had several very specific goals in mind, one of which was to move the focus away from growth of the company and refocus on quality of the product. As you can imagine, this type of re-imaging could not and did not happen overnight, and this period of recalls and restructuring is probably just what Mr. Toyoda needs to jump start the company into a new light: one of safety and quality. This is what he discussed with Congress when he appeared on Wednesday. Specifically, he stated that Toyota’s “priorities became confused”, which again leads to his belief that quality should come before quantity, and he took “full responsibility” for the issues Toyota is currently facing. He has learned from this experience, and plans on bringing Toyota back to the times when quality and reliability were the upmost important aspects of Toyota vehicles.

When Jon Lentz appeared, however, Congress asked more questions referring to the technicalities of the recalls, such as the specific dates the problem came to their attention, and what the future holds for Toyota of America.

CEO’s were not the only one’s testifying at Congress; several customers of Toyota came to the stand during the hearing to tell their experiences with unintended acceleration.

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So you’ve heard about the 2010 Hybrid Camry, a efficient 4 door sedan designed for the “sensible and sensational” consumer. With its 2.5-liter four cylinder engine and estimated 33 mpg, the Camry is one of the hottest cars out there, and it makes the dreaded gas pump not so scary.

Both the interior and exterior of the 2010 Camry have been redesigned, and the changes give it a sleek but fierce look. The front exterior has a new grille and restyled fog lights, while the wheels gained 16-inch alloy wheels. The interior, however, is where this vehicle really shines. The console has the latest Toyota Camry Parts, featuring a touch screen navigation system, it also has a revamped audio interface allowing listeners to connect devices via bluetooth, USB, AUX, and also the capability to stream MP3 files.

In Australia, where the automobile is manufactured, the 2010 Hybrid Camry was released along with, get this; The Hybrid Camry Rose. Yes,I am referring to the red flower you probably gave someone yesterday on Valentine’s day. The scientists at Toyota worked very hard to produce this hybrid flower, which is specially designed to thrive in dry climates, such as the Australian outback.

Both the sedan and flower were produced to combine two largely different ideas; a beautiful and powerful image portrayed on the inside, while having great fuel efficiency or, in the rose, surviving in a dry climate. Toyota has been doing this to show how something very technical and reliable can be visually pleasing as well.

The flower was presented as an exclusive promotion in Australia for the 2010 Hybrid Camry. The whole country is very excited to be producing the vehicle because it is one of their first locally manufactured Toyota cars, and the flower was presented to the attendees of the unveiling. So, next time you see Toyota Camry Parts on the road, who knows, they might be from Australia, where hybrid roses rule the outback!

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While recent recalls have been hard on Toyota Consumers, one automobile they can look forward to is the 2011 Toyota Avalon. Revealed this week at the Chicago Auto Show, the Avalon includes many features that make it extra safe and reliable.

Several improvements from the 2010 Avalon have been made on this new, cleaner version of the vehicle to ensure it will not have to experience any recalls. One feature that Toyota is very excited about is its new pedal assembly, which will improve upon the current one and ensure no unintended acceleration occurs. Another safety feature featured in the Avalon is a whopping 7 airbags, which means that if you do have an accident, you and your passengers will have a better chance of leaving the accident unharmed.

While safety was a big part in the unveiling, Toyota still delivered with the fuel efficiency of the 2011 Avalon. It has an EPA of 20 m.p.g. in the city and 29 on the highway. This makes the Avalon one of the most fuel efficient mid-sized non-hybrid sedan on the road today!

The interior of the Avalon, along with the outside, is very impressive. With a sleek and bold body style, it is sure to turn a few heads in the city. The interior is fully equipped with tons of effective and useful options such as a touch-screen navigation display and hands free bluetooth phone capabilities.

Update on the recalls: Toyota recently announced a software update that will address braking issues on the Prius and Lexus HS hybrid. your local Kansas City Toyota Dealer should be receiving the updates soon.

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