Some Toyota dealers are staying open until midnight to cope with the flood of customers who are showing up worried about faulty accelerators.
Last week, Toyota announced it would stop building and selling eight recalled models. In Canada, about 270,000 Toyotas were recalled so the company could resolve possible problems with sticking accelerators.
Toyota said this week that all vehicles in Canada affected should be able to have their defective accelerator pedals repaired within a month, with dealers expected to begin work on priority vehicles by the end of this week.
Customers who own a vehicle that has been recalled should expect a call from their dealer once they're ready to begin doing the repairs.
"But needless to say, 270,000 people at once can't all be serviced simultaneously, so we're setting some priorities too," Toyota Canada managing director Stephen Beatty told The Canadian Press in an interview Monday.
Vehicles that have actually experienced the stickiness associated with the faulty pedal - blamed on excess friction resulting from wear and environmental problems - will be given first priority, followed by older, high-mileage vehicles.
After that, newer vehicles and vehicles that have been ordered by customers but not yet delivered due to a sales halt will be serviced.
The new recall goes beyond a previous one that concerned floor mats possibly jamming the gas pedal.
The recall and manufacturing suspensions affect the following models: 2009-2010 RAV4, 2009-2010 Corolla, 2009-2010 Matrix, 2005-2010 Avalon, 2007-2010 Camry, 2010 Highlander, 2007-2010 Tundra, 2008-2010 Sequoia.
Sandy DiFelice was fielding questions from Toyota Canada headquarters in Scarborough, Ont., last week.
Vaughan: If I own one of the recalled Toyota models, is it safe to drive my car or do I have to leave it in the driveway until you fix it?
Di Felice: It is absolutely safe to drive your car.
On Jan. 22, we issued the recall for the sticking accelerator pedal. We said this was a condition where there was a possibility that certain accelerator pedal mechanisms may in rare circumstances mechanically stick in a partially depressed position. When you have that condition, you can still fully apply the brakes and the driver is in control of the vehicle.
That's different than the floor mat recall issue, where the pedal could have potentially got trapped under an improperly sized floor mat, creating unintended acceleration.
Well, now I'm more concerned because I've got two things to worry about.
Except that in Canada our floor mat recall talked about the fact that we had different designs of floor mats from the United States. Ours have proper cut-out space for the pedals.
So the scenario in Canada was different. What we were asking Canadians to do was not to buy aftermarket mats that weren't made properly for the vehicle, not to stack floor mats and to make sure that the original floor mats were properly secured on the clips.
Okay, but the most recent recall wasn't about floor mats, it was about something else. Do you know what the something else is and do you know how to fix it?
Yes, we do. Like any product that has a number of mechanical parts, some parts are susceptible to wear.
It is mechanical wear on a part in the pedal, we have a fix that we are presenting and we will implement it in the market.
What happens if I take it in to a dealer now?
If you're a driver of one of the affected models, we encourage you to contact the dealership.
The dealership will look at the car and will assess whether there is that pedal friction and, if there is, they have a series of remedies they can apply to the vehicle.
How long will all this take?
To inspect the vehicle and explore all options, it will take about two hours.
I don't know how long the permanent fix will take - I haven't received that from our service team.
The two-hour appointment will be free and the recall fix will be free, too.
Of course.
Do I get a loaner car?
The dealer has that at their discretion.
This must be hard on the dealers. They are going to be swamped doing all these recalls.
The dealers fully understand the value of customer service.
They are going to be busy but it offers them an opportunity to have face time with their customers.
You've had the crisis management courses. Don't you think you've overreacted by stopping the factories? That's the thing that communicates panic.
We did it because we recognized we had an estimated 270,000 customers currently on the road in our vehicles who had concerns.
We stopped vehicle production at five North American facilities for the week of Feb. 1 so we could have parts available to meet the needs of those customers in our market.
If you're an existing customer, we want to give you comfort. If you're a new customer, we want to give you comfort so we suspended temporarily the delivery of those vehicles.
Bad timing, isn't it? Just when the market is turning around you have to chase customers out of the showrooms.
When customers walk into the showroom, they'll still be exposed to the full sales experience.
You can sign the deal but what we won't do is deliver the vehicle until the factory fix or the dealer fix is implemented.
With files from The Canadian Press.
Michael Vaughan is co-host with Jeremy Cato of Car/Business, which appears Fridays at 8 p.m. on Business News Network and Saturdays at 2 p.m. on CTV.