Automotive: Toyota pedal recall spreads to co-manufacturers

In the USA, advertisements from car manufacturers are busy promoting the quality of their vehicles: Toyota, long regarded as the makers of one of the very few brands that were bullet-proof (not literally, of course - this is, after all the USA) has been taking out ads saying "bring your cars back to us so we can fix them."

The trouble is that Toyota did not, at least initially, know how to fix the problem.

To its credit, Toyota has not shied away from the news that it has been found that some accelerator pedals can become stuck. The reason, Toyota have learned and made public is due to a bizarre fundamental: the pedal becomes worn in use and then, depending on bad luck, it can catch inside the bodywork and stick with the throttle part-way open.

It's Toyota's second recall for a sticking throttle pedal in the past two months: more than 5 million vehicles in the US have been recalled because the removable floormats could be pushed into a position which prevented the throttle fully closing.

The latest fault has been discovered in cars going back to as early as 2005 and ranging from Camrys to the Matrix.

In Europe, almost 2 million cars are being recalled and an as yet unspecified number in China.

Toyota's response to growing fuss in the USA was to shut down production there. Now it has a plan and the US Department of Transportation (why not "transport?") says that it will approve the fix.

But the issue has now spread: in the Czech Republic, PSA, the manufacturers of Peugeot and Citroen cars has recalled some 90,000 small cars.

Peugeot's 107 and Citroen C1 cars are subject to recall: they are a badge-engineered version of a car developed with Toyota which sells the car as the Aygo.

Toyota says that in Europe, the affected cars include some from the following ranges: Aygo, iQ, Yaris, Auris, Corolla, Verso, Avensis and Rav4.

Last year Aston Martin announced a modified version of the iQ would be made available - but only to current Aston owners and at a price of around GBP20,000. There is no news as to whether those cars are included.

In the USA, over the past ten years or so, almost 20 fatal accidents have been blamed on a Toyota accelerating without warning, but Toyota has always said that they have not been able to identify the fault. It is not known whether the current problem is in any way connected to those allegations.