Toyota Dealership Now Fixing Accelerator Pedals

by Jeff Wright

Straatmann Toyota in Washington, Mo. said today its service technicians have begun to repair Toyota vehicles with potentially faulty accelerator mechanisms.

Mike Yaworski, general manager of the dealership on High Street, estimated his mechanics fixed 15 or 20 vehicles Wednesday, with 25 to 30 scheduled to be retrofitted today.

“We’re well on our way,” Yaworski said. “It’s a real minor deal, which is good, because we’ve been able to alleviate a lot of fears and misinformation that’s out there.  When we have the person in front of us, we can explain how minor the fix is and how minor the problem was to begin with.”

Toyota announced last week that gas pedals on more than 2 million of its vehicles “in rare instances” could stick in a partially depressed position and slowly return to the idle position.

The replacement part is called a “precision cut steel reinforcement,” which is a one-inch adjustment plate within the gas pedal. “All it takes to fix it (gas pedal) is 15 minutes – 30 minutes, tops,” explained Yaworski. He expects about 200 more of the parts to arrive today.

On Wednesday, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood encouraged drivers of the Toyota models in question to stop driving their vehicles until they could be repaired. He later retracted the statement, saying Toyota owners should seek out their local dealership to fix the problem.

Yaworski said Lahood made the comment, “without having all the facts in front of him necessary to make a judgment call like that. We firmly believe that we don’t have an unsafe car on the road.”

Toyota reaffirmed Wednesday that unless car owners are experiencing “issues” with their gas pedal, “we are confident your vehicle is safe to drive.”

For more information about Toyota’s recall of vehicles and what models are affected, phone the Toyota Customer Experience Center at 1-800-331-4331, or visit a local Toyota dealer.