Tundra engine recall - interesting news

The fundamental problem wasn't the technical issue, but how Toyota dealt with it. They didn't get fined $1.2 billion for the defect itself, but for the series of unethical and illegal behavior when dealing with the problem.

First Toyota denied having reports of unintended acceleration. When it became obvious that there were numerous reports, they lied to NHTSA underreporting the number (falsifying the information) and hid data from investigators. Finally, when real numbers came out, Toyota blamed owners / drivers. Toyota dragged their feet for two years, lying and falsifying information to avoid a recall. While the technical issue might have been trivial, Toyota's behavior was a perfect example of corruption to avoid responsibility and "save face". The only reason Toyota eventually addressed the problem and made changes was because of Government intervention. Without Government and legal pressure, Toyota would ignore or continue denying the problem, and people would keep dying.

There is no doubt that Toyota has decent engineers and can make good cars. But there is also a plenty of evidence that they are a corrupt, unethical corporation that will do anything to avoid responsibility, save face and a few pennies. Toyota will lie with a straight face if they can avoid spending some money or acknowledging a mistake. Unlike companies like Subaru or Volvo, Toyota never cared about safety - it's all about maximizing sales and profits, even if it means compromising safety and selling unsafe vehicles.

 

Oil temp

 

This is oil temperature. Transmission temperature is the gauge to the right. Oil pressure is lower left corner of the pic.

 

Got it, thanks

 

You can’t fix a problem you can’t duplicate. It’s the same reason a mechanic can’t fix your car if he or she doesn’t see the problem themselves. Toyota hired NASA to try and help figure this issue out. Sounds to me like they wanted to fix it. But if the NHTSA, NASA or Toyota themselves can not duplicate the problem how can you expect them the fix it and not think it user error?

 

You can defend Toyota as much as you want, but the fact is that Toyota was fined $1.2 billion and paid another billion or so in compensation to victims. You don't get fined for "can't duplicate a problem". Toyota was fined because they took multiple actions to deliberately mislead the authorities and the public. They lied and falsified information. Here are the facts:

"Concealment of defects: In 2009, when media reports about potential defects emerged, Toyota published a misleading statement denying it was hiding any safety issues. Toyota was well aware of multiple reports, yet denied their existence.

Inaccurate recall timeline: When Toyota finally initiated recalls in early 2010 for sticky pedals, it provided the public, NHTSA, and Congress with an inaccurate timeline of events. The company claimed it had learned of the issue in the U.S. in October 2009 and acted promptly. In reality, internal documents showed Toyota's investigation had begun as early as August 2009, and the company had taken steps to hide the problem.

Minimizing the scope of problems: Toyota concealed one safety issue ("sticky pedals") and minimized the scope of another (floor mat entrapment). For example, the company stated that floor mat interference was the sole cause of problems, even though NHTSA corrected them and said it was only an interim measure. This eventually led to Toyota acknowledging that some cars had a sticky gas pedal (something that affected some Ford vehicles as well, as Ford was using gas pedals from the same supplier) and forced Toyota to implement the brake override software, something that was already a common practice among all major auto manufacturers, but wasn't implement by Toyota because Toyota wanted to avoid the cost of having to rewrite ECU software for millions of vehicles.

Withholding internal data: Congressional investigators found evidence that Toyota had a secret repository of information, known as the "Books of Knowledge," containing internal design and testing data. Toyota concealed this information and entered into confidential settlements in lawsuits rather than disclose the confidential material. This is a violation of the "discovery process" in any lawsuit."

Even if initially the cause of the problem wasn't clear, acknowledging the reports, sharing information with investigators, starting investigation promptly and implementing brake override were things that Toyota should have done immediately while looking for the cause of the problem.

 

I have nothing to argue your other statements about Toyotas unethical practices and I do believe they withholding important information when it comes to this engine issue. However when it comes to the unintended acceleration issue, I believe Toyota was made out to be the example simply because that is the same time Toyota passed GM as the worlds largest automaker. Our government didn’t like that….but that’s my opinion and clearly we don’t agree. Every company has “secret” documents of internal business.

 

I agree that politics played some role and the government wanted to set an example. But Toyota dug its own grave by committing multiple serious violations.
BTW, this is something deeply ingrained in Japanese culture. Saving face and protecting reputation are extremely important. While in Western culture a whistle-blower that exposes corporate wrongdoing is hailed as a hero, in Japan he/she is seen as a traitor who soils the company's good name. There are actually laws that protect reputation, even if the damaging information is true. There are numerous examples where Japanese whistle-blowers were jailed and/or had to pay compensation for exposing damaging yet truthful information. That's why whistle-blowers are almost non-existent in Japan, and employees believe that it's more important to preserver company's reputation than to expose wrongdoing.
In addition to a history of safety and other regulatory violations, Toyota has faced numerous scandals in Japan for how they treat their employees. Families have been awarded compensation due to workers dying on the production floor of exhaustion and overwork, as well as employees committing suicide due to constant bullying by the management.
Bottom line, if their is one automotive company that has demonstrated time and again that it can't be trusted, it's Toyota.
Regarding corporate confidential information, yes every company has some. However in case of a lawsuit, ALL this information must be made available to the lawyers of the other plaintiff. I worked in highly confidential research and that's one thing that the lawyers always told us - in case of a lawsuit nothing is secret anymore, and must be disclosed during "discovery". Withholding such information is a crime by itself.

 

My 2009 Tacoma Sport was the all time best value vehicle I have ever owned. It listed for $29k, I bought it for $25k, I drove it for 15 years with no costs other than normal maintenance and sold it for $15k. $10k for 15 years, almost like driving for free. The $15k sales price was probably just a little high due to the pandemic factor, which was just starting to ease. My 2023 Tundra has lost ~$20k in 2 1/2 years. LOL. But I still love it.

 

My 2018 Platinum 4WD hasn't done as well, it's lost about $20k of value of the $46 that I paid for it exactly 7.5 years ago yesterday. That's 43% depreciation in less than 8 years with only 200k miles on the clock. And the damn thing has only ever given two reasons to go back and visit my "friends" at the dealership. Recall for a dim front turn signal, and ECU adjustment for the Airbags in the first year of Toyota Safety Sense.

 

Not disputing the earlier comments but the sudden acceleration was a witch hunt over an improperly installed floormat by ONE dealer. One incident.

https://hbr.org/2011/02/toyotas-recall-crisis-full-of

A short read, but cliff's notes version:
"What did we learn on February 8, 2011 when the report came out? That there is absolutely no evidence of sudden unintended acceleration caused by electronic problems in Toyota vehicles. The only causes NASA found were improperly installed floor mats and sticky gas pedals that can be slow to return. There has been only one documented accident caused by the floor mats — the one involving the loaner Lexus, where the dealer had used the wrong floor mat and failed to attach it properly with the provided restraining clips — and there have been no documented cases of accidents caused by the very small number of sticky pedals."

"A first step might be the government and the media learning something from Toyota’s systematic approach to problem solving. It starts with some patience in getting all the facts, then prioritizing problems, then looking at them objectively to determine root causes, and finally developing solutions based on the real problems."

 

If Toyota is lying or covering up about the nature and scope of this engine issue - which is characterized as a safety issue - they’d better hope the US government does not find that out. It will make the VW diesel gate scandal look like an afternoon tea social.

 

The engine recall was not voluntary in any way, shape, or form.
NHTSA and Toyota are tied at the hip.
NHTSA gave them the opportunity to "voluntarily" recall the engine.

 

They have thousands of failed engines to study. They are not chasing some random noise under the hood that intermittently happens when you are going 55.17 mph at 98 degrees up a 3.124% slope with 538.45 lbs of cargo onboard only when it's a full moon.

Maybe they don't like what the analysis and data is telling them. The 3.4 has an an inherent design issue they don't want to admit, fix or warranty

Not the first maker doing the accounting on dodging the root cause vs admitting it

 

Much more to come on this.

Let's not forget that they publicly said they pulled "known good engines" from vehicles that had yet to experience a failure and they saw abnormal bearing wear in those. Those "known good engines" were pulled from 4 Tundra at Toyota of Plano. They pulled the entire drivetrain and crated it to be sent to Japan.

And let's not forget the former member who purchased a brand new short block and found debris in said short block. Debris was an issue and could still very well be an issue, but it is not the primary issue.

 

If that is the case, then the recall will necessarily have to be expanded. A lot. Maybe even to replace our replacement engines if those are still rolling out with whatever the problem is. Road trip next week... fingers crossed.

 

Such a tease Ryan

 

Correct. Recall Remedy Engine Assemblies are not immune to failure despite what Toyota might be saying. In fact, there is a reported failure of a Recall Remedy Engine Assembly on Facebook. 11K on the replacement engine. Starting knocking and the owner was able to make it to the dealership.

 

Teasing as an art form.

 

Not that this adds anything to the conversation, but this is part of the reason why I am intentionally limiting how much I drive my truck. They way I figure it based off the data in the spreadsheet, I have 15K more miles until I am in the middle of the failure bell curve. If I can keep the miles off, I may be able to push any potential failure (should one occur with my vehicle) off another year or so to when they have a better idea on the fix and can permanently fix my truck.

I would be nice to know any vague timeline on the release on the "Much more to come on this" but its understandable the restraints you operate under.

Its a bit of cold comfort to know that Toyota is still working on a fix. Hopefully it's not to abandon the engine entirely and issue and apology with no recourse to the current owners.

 

Let's see how this lawsuit plays out.
https://www.classaction.org/news/cl...laguing-2022-2024-toyota-tundra-tundra-hybrid
The "beauty" of lawsuits is that all available information has to be disclosed to plaintiff lawyers thought "discovery" process. Toyota can't hide "confidential" information and not sharing all the data would be a criminal act.
Toyota can't plead the 5th, as corporatios are not protected by the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination.

 

That comment was specifically toward the unintended acceleration issue

 

This is also part of the whole conundrum for us who have a recalled engine and something I’m currently debating myself: To get it swapped or not when the time comes. I don’t necessarily limit how much I drive but do I want to risk engine failure when I’m with my family? No. Do I want to get my engine swapped with a potentially still flawed engine when I haven’t had an issue yet? Not particularly, but this seems like the most common sense route when considering safety.

My hope would be that if there is an additional “fix” eventually anyone who has had their engine replaced would be eligible but everything is a giant question mark given the limited amount of information out there.

 

This is my hope as well.

I don't have NotRyan level info, but from my experience with corporate risk evaluation, it will likely come down to what exactly the "fix" is, and what the total cost to @Toyota will be should they decide to implement that fix across all affected trucks.

Toyota will have actuaries that take that dollar amount, and compare it to various other scenarios such as:

• doing nothing (weighing risk of lawsuits and potential fines);
• just applying the fix to a certain range of build dates;
  
• just applying the fix to trucks who encounter an issue;
• combination of the above.

Their cost/risk analysis will decide which way they go.
NHTSA will be (should be) watching closely to see what path they take.

 

So far its option 2 and 3. And honestly, I am ok with that. I know if I have a failure it will likely be a short block style repair which I can be ok with depending on when/where the failure occurs and what dealership performs the work. I have read horrible stories of short block repairs and ones that were pretty ok. Again, if their is a design issue with the short block that may or may not have been uncovered by the debris issue, hopefully by the time I need one (if I need one at all) they will have this all resolved and the repair will stick. If not, I may be forced to sell the tundra and buy a 5.7 short block "just in case" for my 2014 Sequoia until better trucks
come along.

 

Exactly. The big problem we face is the timeline. Toyota is already waaaaayyyy behind the timeline to replace the already recalled engines. So, if the recall gets widened to other units and potentially to those that have already been replaced, it is likely the trucks will be piles of rust before we see a remedy. Maybe that is part of Toyota's "strategy", slow roll the replacements to give more time to work the problem... and to have some Tundras leave the fleet due to collisions or end of life which will reduce the number of engines needed. What I'd like to see is NHTSA make a mandate as to the timeline.