The least drivers ask of their cars is that they stop, and that they go. While problems on both counts continued to hammer Toyota, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood compounded the trouble by tripping over his tongue.
Speaking Wednesday morning before a congressional subcommittee on transportation, LaHood advised American owners of more than 2.3 million recalled Toyotas to “stop driving” their cars and get them to a dealer for repairs.
But most dealerships won’t have the parts to repair potentially sticky gas pedals on the affected models until next week, and Toyota had advised drivers that, unless they were having accelerator problems, they could wait to be notified about repairs.
Ray LaHood
Shortly after noon, and after Toyota stock took a hit that seemed at least partially linked to his comments, LaHood skinned back his earlier advice but stumbled when trying to explain why.
He told reporters the warning to “stop driving” the recalled models was “obviously a misstatement.”
“What I meant to say or what I thought I said was, if you own one of these cars or if you’re in doubt, take it to the dealer and they’re going to fix it,” LaHood said. “If you’re in doubt, take it to the dealership today and have them look at it and have them fix it.”
Already staggered last month by the global recall of 4.6 million of its most popular vehicles, Toyota also learned Wednesday that its vaunted Prius hybrid is the focus of safety investigations in the U.S. and Japan tied to consumer complaints about the brakes on the 2010 model. Prius was not among the vehicles recalled for accelerator trouble.
“Prius is the gold standard,” Brian Johnson, senior global auto industry analyst with Barclays Capital in Chicago, told The New York Times. “We know Toyota puts its best engineering and its best talent into that car. This hits at its flagship.”
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