Car Maker Recalls

As previously covered on this blog, within the past few months Toyota has recalled over one million of their vehicles to either fix the drivers side floor mat, fix the accelerator pedal, or fix the brakes.

Now, Honda is recalling more than 400,000 vehicles due to brake problems as well. Apparently, due to the stability control system on some Honda Odysseys and Elements, the brake pressure on the pedal will begin to soften after some considerable use. Eventually, this can become dangerous as the braking power diminishes greatly. They know what the problem is (unlike Toyota); air can somehow get into the braking system because of the stability control system.

Within these past few months, I've begun to think about what a car maker decides on in order to release a recall. It is definitely negative publicity so they must have some very strict rules before their PR people release a new recall to the media.

Recalls aren't a new phenomenon. They have been issued quite frequently over the past 20 years, and probably farther back then that. However, this Toyota recall has been one of the larger ones in recent history.

There are a few others that I remember that were big stories.

Jumping back to the 90's and early 00's, Ford chose a Firestone product for their tires on all of their Ford Explorers. As time went on, reports of roll over accidents due to tread separation off the tires began to surface. Ford eventually recalled all of these vehicles with their tires. The reasons for this to happened included the fact that the incorrect amount of air that should be in the tires was stamped inside the car's door jam. The sidewall of the tires said something completely different. If a person followed the reading that was given in the door jam, their tires would be 10 psi less than recommended. This caused roughly 250 deaths and many injuries (according to Wikipedia).

Another high profile recall that occurred a few years ago was for the Pontiac Grand Prix and the Buick Regal (roughly years 1997-2004?). The cars would catch on fire in consumer's driveways, causing a lot of property damage due to people keeping their cars in the garage.


One other recall that has been sort of swept under the rug and has been a continuous problem is for Chrysler/Dodge. It concerns their Grand Caravan/Caravan/Town & Country minivans. What would happen was during an accident, the airbags wouldn't deploy at the correct time. Not only this, but during assembly, something called the clock spring was inserted incorrectly and was therefore non-operational. This was for the 96 through 00 years I believe. Just recently, they issued a minor recall regarding the same component on a newer version of all of the vans, although the reasoning is only slightly different.

2010 Rochester International Auto Show

The time of year has come again. The 2010 Rochester International Auto Show at the Riverside Convention Center, located downtown, is in progress.

Having started on this past Wednesday, all major car makers have brought cars to represent themselves in the show. The best part of the auto show is that you can virtually see any car that is available for purchasing new right now. You can sit inside them, kick the tires, and ask some hired public speaker to tell you more about it.

This car show has been a tradition for me to go to since 8th grade. I love it because I am a car geek and will pretty much sit in 3/4 of all the cars at the show. It is the only time that I can see every car that is being sold and get a good up-close look at it.

I went to the show on Friday night and it wasn't as busy as other nights.

Here are some pictures that I took...







It's safe to say that my favorites included those pictured as well as some of the new Fords, which surprised me, as well as some of the GM's, Infiniti's, and the Suzuki Kizashi was also good.

2010 Suzuki Kizashi - Will it jumpstart Suzuki's limited image?

Suzuki has struggled to be a real player in the United States car market. This is no secret. They have limited amounts of dealers throughout the area and have a limited line up that consists of a few small cheaply built cars, a semi-stylish yet un-sensible SUV, and a few others not worth mentioning. Most of their cars are either re-badged Daewoo's (which were briefly brought to the U.S., but failed) or not the quality is just not up to the level that most Americans expect in a car these days.

However, this may change with the brand new 2010 Suzuki Kizashi. If the name doesn’t tell you, this car is made by Suzuki itself. However, this time, critics are raving about this new offering.

The car has an overall European look as well as some usually Japanese car accents. It looks very stylish and has great aesthetics. It is interesting as well because it shares a lot of design cues from Volkswagen. Many, including Edmunds.com and myself, notice that it looks like a cross between a Volkswagen Passat and Volkswagen Jetta, with a few other ingredients mixed in.

For now, the Kizashi (I know, weird name…) will only have an Inline four cylinder engine. A V6 version of the car is expected to come out within a year or two according to car review websites (namely Edmunds.com).

The Kizashi can also be purchased with all wheel drive (AWD), which means all four wheels can be powered in the case of slippery situations. Otherwise, the engine powers the front two wheels only. The Kizashi can be equipped with either a CVT automatic transmission or a 6-speed manual transmission.

CNET.com reviewers stated that the 6-speed was fun to drive. While they originally tested it for performance but then switched to testing it as a city hauler, the car is still a very competent car.

You have the option of purchasing a rear back-up camera. This helps eliminate blind spots when backing up. When you put the car into the reverse gear, a picture of what is behind the car will automatically show up on the navigation screen on the main control panel where the radio is (Kizashi must also be equipped with the optional navigation system in order to be equipped with the camera).

It also has a nice name brand radio system. It has a Rockford-Fosgate premium system with pretty much any feature under the sun. The car has a total of 10 speakers with this system, including a punchy subwoofer that is mounted in the trunk of the car.

For a Suzuki, this is quite frankly amazing.

However, on the road, both Edmunds.com and CNET.com found that the handling was uninspiring.

The main problem with the Kizashi is that it looks like and is marketed as a sporty-mainstream car. While the looks definitely live up to this expectation, the hardware/riding characteristics do not.

On the plus side, the Kizashi is a HUGE step up from their previous cars within the last ten years. Here are a few pictures of what they used to make…


This is the Suzuki Grand Vitara (not current version).


This is the Suzuki Verona (no longer in production).


With the Kizashi, the interior fit and finish is superior to many cars on the road right now. One consumer reviewer on Edmunds.com had this to say about it:

My "other" car is a Mercedes AMG, so that is a good reference point when I say the fit and finish on this car is superb! My first car with a CVT and it is smooth. Good MPG. Buy one of these because everyone finds out about them.

The inside feel of the car looks very European and upscale, which I’m sure will appeal to many different types of people. It may not appeal to those into Cadillac’s or Lexus’ (they’re probably buying them for the image anyways), but it will especially appeal to many others- the price tag doesn’t hurt either.

The Kizashi starts at around $19,000 with the basic, yet surprisingly good features. The fully loaded model, the Kizashi SLS starts at a reasonable $25,000.

There might be other offerings in the market that are just as good as this, including the Chevrolet Impala or Malibu, Toyota Camry, or Honda Accord, but the price cannot be beat for this Suzuki.

My recommendation is that if you’re in the market for a midsized car right now, and you do not want to get a vanilla-like Honda Accord, Chevrolet Impala, or Toyota Camry, this car might just be your soul mate.

Cars in America vs. Cars in Europe

When I visited France with the school in 2008, immediately when I stepped foot outside of the airport, I noticed all these weird looking cars. Usually, when you show me a car, any random car on the street, I can name it off the spot and usually tell you a few random facts about it. However, when I was in France, I couldn't do that; almost all of the cars were completely different. This was pretty unsettling. I decided to pay attention to the cars on the long bus rides we would be taking over the eight day trip, and I did learn quite a bit.

For starters, in Europe, a lot of the cars are shared, meaning basically as you cross into different countries, the cars are the same. It's like our country in relation to Canada; our cars are pretty much the same as the cars that are in Canada.

In Europe, there are many more brands than what we have here in the U.S. Here are just some of the most popular "normal" ones (meaning, not any super sporty types):

Renault - French company
Citroen - French company
Peugeot - French company
Alfa Romeo - U.K. company
Fiat - Italian company

Like I said, there are others, but these are among the top car makers there for normal cars.

Of those companies, probably you have only heard of Fiat, or possibly Citroen. Last year, Fiat bought a large portion of the Chrysler company, in an effort to keep the company from going under. We have yet to see any Fiat branded cars here in the U.S., but they could come sooner or later. Citroen had a short period of time here in the U.S. It was quite a few years ago (between the 1950's and 1970's) so chances are you've never heard of them (I hadn't either).

The first couple of days during my trip, all of the cars were a blur to me. That must be what it's like for the people that do not know their cars or quite frankly don't care (which I'm sure there are many people like that and I understand, don't worry).

As the days wore on, I began to pick out a couple that I kept constantly seeing. There was this one car called the Renault Kangoo. I remembered it for a couple of reasons. The primary one is because of the name- who wouldn't like a name like Kangoo? Not only does it sound like "Kangaroo," but it has a zing to it. This French car company has some very good marketing people. The second reason was because one of these vehicles nearly hit me as I attempted to cross a busy street. At this point in time I also was able to hear the horn. The horn sounded strikingly similar to a chihuahua barking at a mail man.

Anyways, that was one of the main cars that stuck in my head, and for good reason too.

The other car that I remember vividly from the trip was the Renault Trafic. It was, again, a neat name.

Overall, the cars there are much smaller in scale. The main reason for this is that the gas prices are very very high. I went over there knowing this and when I first saw a gas station (called Petrol Stations there because gas is Petroleum) there, I was shocked. The prices looked ridiculously low. However, I quickly realized it was per litre, not per gallon.

Another reason for the overall compact feeling of their cars is the fact that so many streets are narrow. Our huge touring bus had to creatively navigate the small streets in many small cities and towns, not to mention the metropolis of Paris. There were many nasty words uttered in Romanian by our bus driver, whom was from Romania.

If they had all the huge SUVs and cars we have here, I don't think they would be able to cope. You would see a lot of missing side-view mirrors, missing bumpers, and scraped doors because of the difficult navigation that needs to happen. Additionally, a lot of drivers there are crazy.

When it comes to liking which area's cars better, I would have to say I like ours. This is obviously because I know way more about them and that I've been around them my whole life. The cars abroad were very different and unique and I think a few should come over the pond and be sold here in the U.S. I think some of the cars would do very well over here.

Toyota's Troubles

If you haven't heard about the recent multiple Toyota recalls, you must be living under a rock. Over the past few months, Toyota has issued two major recalls; one that fixes a problem with the floor mat possibly hitting the accelerator pedal and the other, a direct fix to the pedal itself. There could be more recalls to come as well.

Many owners seem to be very concerned about this problem and they should be. These problems have been related to at least 19 deaths across the country. I’d reckon that probably that of every ten cars you see on the road, at least one of them is a Toyota. In fact, my family owns a 2005 Toyota Camry (not on the recall list at this time). Now, many, including the co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak, believe that this problem could be related to an electronic malfunction within the internal computer of the car.

Virtually every day on the nightly news, there is at least one story about the Toyota saga in which they show pictures of cars that have experienced unintended acceleration. Through my own observations, I have discovered that some of the pictures of these wrecks are vehicles that aren’t even included in the recall. I have seen at least five different pictures of the same model year Camry as my family’s vehicle. This is very concerning and I believe that Toyota has handled this situation very poorly.

ABC news recently did a report about how to contact Toyota about your recalled vehicle, and they couldn’t come in contact with anyone for a long time; and when they did, the representative did not have enough information to answer any questions. Additionally, when they brought their cameras to one of Toyota America’s offices in Chicago, Brian Ross, the reporter, was met with swift action by the receptionist. Ross was told to leave the property as soon as he walked in the door.

Over the course of the past week when I’ve been writing this post, there have been at least two more additions to the recalls regarding their vehicles that have been issued. Here is a list of all the vehicles that are under a recall as of February 4, 2010 with the model years listed after: (with help from CNN.com)

Avalon – 2005-2010
Camry – 2007-2010*
Corolla – 2009-2010*
Highlander – 2010*
Matrix – 2009-2010
RAV4 – 2009-2010*
Sequoia – 2008-2010
Tundra – 2007-2010
Pontiac Vibe – 2009-2010

*Models with a VIN number that starts with the letter “J” are unaffected.

For a more in-depth description of each different recall, click here.

As of now, talks are surfacing about a possible new recall affecting the 2010 Toyota Prius. Owners are complaining about limited braking power, which some believe could be related to the electronic system in the car.
It is a widely known fact that Toyota has been, at least until this point, a much respected and well known car company. General knowledge held by the public is that Toyota’s vehicles are the most reliable and safe vehicles available for purchase on the market. After this bout of problems, I believe that this may change for some.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood made a comment that suggested owners should refrain from driving their vehicles on February 3.

“My advice is if anyone owns one of these vehicles, stop driving it,” he said. Later on in the day, LaHood clarified his statement. He meant to say that owners should take their vehicles to the dealer if they are worried about the recall.

Those people that would have said without hesitation to purchase a Toyota may hesitate now. This has been a huge story. Many will now remember this recall and think about it whenever Toyota comes to mind. It is a huge black eye for the company, if you will. However, I don’t believe it will hurt their reputation to the point of extinction. I’m sure some people may stop purchasing them, but there are a lot of people who have sworn to the Toyota name before this recall and will probably still do so afterwards. I know my immediate family will still purchase them- after all, our Camry with over 70,000 miles on it hasn’t had any problems whatsoever. In fact, it still has the original muffler, which my dad cannot stop touting.

In my opinion, I still wouldn’t mind purchasing a Toyota. I might be somewhat cautious about purchasing one by researching to look for any recalls before hand, but that is what I’d probably do anyways. Overall, my advice to anyone buying a car right now- don’t worry about this recall. If the car model you are looking at is effected, either make sure it has been taken care of or don’t buy it. Since they’ve halted production of the effected vehicles as of February 1, you’ll probably have a hard time buying any effected vehicle too.