With congressional hearings beginning these days about Toyota’s safety shortcomings, the automaker has at least one example that it can use to show that it is actually being more aggressive than other car businesses when it comes to safety recalls.
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The case in point: remember about a week ago of certain 2010 four-wheel-drive Toyota Tacoma pickups for an issue with a driveshaft component.
A supplier, Dana Holding of Maumee, Ohio, told the National Highway Transportation Security Administration on Feb. 11 that much less than 2% of driveshaft yokes — a connector component — on 34,134 vehicles could be cracked.
Toyota issued remembers the next day of about 8,000 Tacomas that use the component. Two other makers using the yoke, Ford Motor and Nissan, did not.
Toyota officials are trumpeting remember as showing how they really feel under pressure for recalls when their competitors are allowed more flexibility. It is a single from the developments that “we’re scratching our head on,” Toyota Senior Vice President Don Esmond said recently.
When Dana notified NHTSA of the possible flaws, “We said, ‘Fine, OK, we’re most likely going to be in the spotlight. … We’re going to just do a safety remember,’ “Esmond says.
Safety experts say one user of a potentially flawed component performing a recall when others don’t is unusual but not unheard of.
“I have seen it occur,” says Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Security. “This is a scenario where, for a company like Toyota, you do not want to add to your troubles,” so it just went ahead and recalled.
But Sean Kane of Security Research & Strategies says that once one maker recalls, it can put pressure on those who didn’t issue remember to reconsider.
Ford and Nissan give different reasons why they decided against recalls based on the information from Dana, but neither believes it poses a danger within the trucks:
•Ford. The 14,302 suspect parts are only in all-wheel-drive versions of the Ford Escape small SUV. Spokesman Said Deep says the shaft engages only when the all-wheel drive is activated, typically a small percentage of driving time, and it carries less than the full brunt of the power.
•Nissan. The 11,195 yokes are in use on a range of pickups and SUVs, but Nissan found that even if they were to fail, the shaft would fall harmlessly on a chassis crossbar, posing no danger to the vehicle or passengers. Drivers would know the component failed: “It’s going to make a heck of a noise,” says spokesman Colin Price.
Dana’s filing with NHTSA said it first alerted automakers that there might be an issue with some of the parts on Feb. 3, a day after a problem was discovered at the Dana factory.
No accidents or injuries have been reported, stated Dana spokesman Chuck Hartlage.
Esmond says the recall procedure in this case is fairly simple.
“It’s like a 10-minute check” to look for yokes with the suspect parts numbers, he stated, so Toyota’s remember rationale was: “Let’s get this one behind us.”