Toyota has told dealers it will provide replacement accelerator pedals to owners

WASHINGTON, Toyota has told dealers it will provide replacement accelerator pedals to owners who are unsatisfied with their repairs under the massive recall following dozens of complaints about the fix.The Japanese automaker said in a memo obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press that if a customer is unhappy with the feel of the accelerator after the car is repaired, dealers can provide a replacement pedal at no charge. Dealers have been inserting a piece of metal into the gas pedal mechanism to eliminate friction that was causing the pedal problem on more than 4 million vehicles involved in a January recall.

“A replacement pedal should only be offered to a customer after the reinforcement bar has been installed and the customer has expressed dissatisfaction with the operation and/or feel of the pedal,” Toyota said in a memo to dealers, service manager and parts managers.

The memo, dated February 2010, said the pedal replacement “is based upon specific customer request only. Dealers are not to solicit pedal replacement.” The memo was first reported by The New York Times.

An AP analysis of government data found that more than 100 owners have complained to the government about problems with sudden acceleration after Toyota dealers fixed their vehicles. Toyota has said it is confident in its repairs and has found no evidence of other problems, such as faulty electronics.

Toyota has recalled more than 8 million vehicles globally over sticky pedals and accelerators that can become entrapped in floor mats, tarnishing the company’s safety reputation and leading to government investigations and congressional hearings.

The memo addresses Toyota vehicles that were listed in the January recall. The vehicles include: the 2005-10 Avalon; 2007-10 Camry and Tundra; 2009-10 Corolla, Matrix and RAV4; 2008-10 Sequoia and 2010 Highlander.

“If a customer is not satisfied with the operation and/or the feel of the accelerator pedal after the reinforcement bar has been installed, please assist us by assuring a replacement pedal is provided at no charge to these customers,” the company said in the memo.

Officials with Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration did not immediately comment.

A group of consumer advocates and engineers who contend Toyota has discounted potential electronic problems in problem vehicles planned to hold a news conference Tuesday on the massive recalls. Toyota has said it has found no evidence that electrical issues are behind the recalls.

Kristen Tabar, an electronics general manager with Toyota’s technical center in Ann Arbor, Mich., said in a video clip posted by the company on Monday that the automaker has eight labs in Japan that it uses to bombard vehicles with electronic interference.

She said Toyota ensures that “every system in the vehicle operates properly under those conditions.”(AP)

Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport for $2.1 million

You want to buy a camera? We can pit it against three others with nearly indistinguishable features, no problem. Blu-ray players? We’ll compile a three-axis matrix that triangulates the perfect combination of image quality, connected functionality and price. But if you’re considering the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport, we can’t do much for you.Comparing it to any other car is pointless, because there is nothing else in its $2.1-million (based on current exchange rates) class. That same cash-filled briefcase could buy seven Ferrari 599s or every single 2009 model Mercedes. You could snap up a top-shelf Maybach and employ a chauffeur until well past the apocalypse. Hell, in this economy, $2.1 million is probably enough to make you a one-man special-interest group with some serious Washington clout.But don’t. Buy a Grand Sport. Even if there were another 253-mph drop-top with more luxury appointments than a Bond villain’s boudoir, you wouldn’t want it. You’d want this exact car, because more than being a blast to drive, it is the greatest gasoline-powered vehicle that has ever been, or will ever be, built. Seriously. Take a moment and consider what Bugatti has done: Because a handful of billionaires demanded that the fastest car in the world be available topless, the Volkswagen-owned ultra-luxury automaker essentially broke the laws of physics. Again.The first Veyron is an engineering marvel. That’s the one with the massively reinforced roof that helped keep the rest of the body from deforming into an amoebic tangle of graphite composite and exotic metal under the joint stresses of lateral acceleration, horsepower and wind. It stands as one of the greatest achievements of the petroleum age. It required the intellectual might of one of the largest and arguably smartest car companies in the world to birth a car that was not only faster than anything on the road, but easy enough to pilot that anyone could drive it. (“It killed my husband” is not the kind of country-club buzz that sells cars.) To make the Grand Sport, Bugatti’s engineers had to do the same thing, only with a giant hole in the middle. It was like designing a picture frame to break rocks.

They had to bolster the floor, doors and B pillars (where the back edges of the windows rest) with acres of carbon fiber. They had to turn the topside air scoops into structural supports for protection during a rollover. Then they had to sacrifice 100 virgins and have the production facility in Molsheim, France, blessed by druids.The result is the most structurally rigid convertible in the world, which, miraculously, weighs no more and goes no slower than the coupe on which it is based. With the transparent roof removed, air resistance limits the Grand Sport to 217 mph, but you’d want that roof on for a top-speed run anyway; the wind could rip your face off at around 245.

By now, the Veyron’s stats are legendary: 1,001 horsepower from a mid-mounted, 8.0-liter, 16-cylinder engine that gets air stuffed down its ravenous gullet by four massive turbochargers. All-wheel drive. A seven-speed, dual-clutch transmission that switches gears faster than a state staffer ducking questions about the Appalachian Trail. Depending on how you define “production car,” it is the fastest in the world. In the quickest Lamborghini ever produced, the Murcielago LP640, you can hit 60 mph in 3.2 seconds. In the Grand Sport it takes a hair under 2.5. How does it feel to command that pace? Godlike.The acceleration is so immediate you can feel your eyeballs deform under the G-forces. It’s a sensation of isolationist joy, an out-of-body awareness that you’re moving faster than the world can react. Bystanders vaguely remember seeing a flash of expensive paint a few seconds after you disappear over the horizon; entire generations of insects die on your prow. Passing other motorists becomes a dangerous entitlement that has you resenting oncoming traffic for hogging your “VIP lane” — especially when you realize that you can outrun not only the 5-0’s cruisers, but their helicopters, too. If they wanna catch you, they’re gonna have to dust off Airwolf and drag Jan Michael Vincent out of rehab.
But this isn’t just some dumb auto-jock that takes off from stoplights in a hail of shredded asphalt, molten Michelins and screaming revs. If anything, the exhaust note is a bit tame, and the power is manageable. Unlike driving, say, a Viper SRT-10, you’re not in constant fear of accidentally going around a turn ass-end first because you blipped the go-pedal a half-inch too deep. Though the Veyron has almost twice as much power as the super-snake, its all-wheel-drive and 14-inch-wide tires grip the ground with the tenacity of a junkie clutching a five-dollar bill.

A lot of factors contribute to this prodigious hunker-down: the aforementioned tires (Michelin developed them specifically to accommodate the Veyron’s top speed) and AWD; the giant mid-mounted engine, placed to provide perfect 45/55 weight distribution; the insanely advanced aerodynamics and suspension, which automatically change the shape and ride-height of the car to provide an extra 800 pounds of downforce when you exceed 137 miles per hour (they’d be illegal in Formula 1 competition, incidentally). And then there’s the sheer mass: Though its power-to-weight ratio bests the Ferrari F430 by almost 50 percent, the Veyron, at 4,400 pounds, is still more than half a ton heavier. And gravity is one tenacious bitch. This car sticks to the ground like 1,000-horsepower gum.

Push the Grand Sport hard, and the rear-biased AWD will start to feel looser, making the car light and nimble through the twisties. But even when attacking some seriously hairy turns from deep in triple digits, the Veyron never gave up its grip. And when we almost blew it on a butt-puckering downhill double-apex, the all-wheel-drive system put power in just the right place to pull the car back in line. All while we sat comfortably in bucket seats that made our couch seem fit only for the waiting room of the DMV.

Bugatti offers seven different seat shapes, to accommodate the seven known varieties of billionaire: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. Each is based around a carbon-fiber shell and available in whatever animal skin the laws of your kingdom permit. Our test car was fitted with caramel-colored leather. It was nice, but the light hue reflected quite a bit of glare off the steep rake of the windshield. Other luxury touches include a stereo, we’re told. The CD player is custom-designed by Burmeister to operate skip-free at 250 miles per hour. We never turned it on. With the carbon fiber and polycarbonate roof removed, you have the only soundtrack you need: the engine’s growl (could be louder) and the roar of the twin air intakes, which suck air like a two rolls of quarters quart of sterno Las vegas.There’s also a navigation system. It might be the finest example of passive aggression ever assembled; Bugatti’s engineers clearly don’t want you to use it. You can only program the system with a separate, 2005-vintage PDA. If you can stomach the Windows Mobile interface long enough to set your destination, you get to view your route guidance in a tiny screen in the rearview mirror. Theoretically. As long as it’s nighttime. It’s invisible in the daylight, and the Grand Sport is a convertible.But even if its nav system shouted insults at you, it would be hard to complain about this machine. It is not perfect — no car will ever be. But it’s close. And it will likely remain as close as a car with a gasoline-burning engine will ever get. We’re at the end of the petroleum era, the end of a golden age of supercars where speed can be sought regardless of consequence. It’s highly unlikely that a major automaker will ever be able to justify spending the time and money to develop a fossil-fuel-powered car that can top the Veyron’s combination of power, speed, handling, driveability and flat-out luxury. The Grand Sport is the worthy successor to the Ferrari F40, the Lamborghini Diablo, the McLaren F1 and every other Texas tea-drinker that ever owned the title “world’s fastest.” And its high-level swank takes that prize with style points nonpareil.Maybe we’ll idolize maglevs next. Maybe Tesla will have its day on a Trapper Keeper with a juice box that tops 250. But whatever we’re drooling over next year, whatever makes its way onto the dorm-room walls and man-children’s screen-savers, it won’t run on petrol. Unless it’s still a Veyron: the last king of the gas-guzzlers, forever the greatest.

Jet-powered Ford guns for 300 mph

Joe Wilkins knew there was only one way to give his supercharged, alcohol-injected Hemi-engined hot rod more power: Put a jet engine in the trunk.”It started as a hobby and turned into a monster,” said Joe Wilkins, the motor madman behind what might be the wildest 1939 Ford ever built. He’s an inventor and defense department contractor, and the idea of goosing the Ford’s ability to turn heads and shred tires came when he bought a used gas turbine engine.”I got hooked on the simplicity and power that this thing produced, and I decided one day I want to put it in a car.”

Luckily for us, he did. The Hemi Jet — Wilkins has copyrighted the name — fires up this weekend at the Houston AutoRama, and Wilkins plans to attempt a land speed record in the near future.In the meantime, he’s tooling around Navasota, Texas, in what he says is the ultimate sleeper when the jet engine’s tucked away in the trunk.Most people say “Nice car” and assume he’s got the obligatory small-block Chevrolet engine under the hood. Little do they know.”I can drive it up to the store and get a gallon of milk if I want to,” he told Autopia.The car is an amalgamation of the Big Three, with a Chrysler engine, Chevrolet drivetrain and Ford body. Wilkins says the jet engine was probably used as an APU and weighs 110 pounds.

He claims the car is street legal so long as the jet stays stowed. He fires it up from time to time to show off, and he plans to run it flat-out at the Bonneville Salt Flats.”We want to be the fastest street legal car in the world,” he said.He’s got some intense competition. The Bugatti Veyron tops out at 253 mph and the Shelby Supercars Ultimate Aero TT does 255. And then there’s Red Vector One, that crazy Vauxhall that does zero to 60 in under a second. Record, schmecord — we just want to see the video.”I’m more than certain the car will go over 300,” Wilkins said. “We’ve still got a ways to go [before Bonneville], but not a long way. We’ll have to experiment in some wind tunnels and end up with a spoiler on the back to keep the front end on the ground.”

Sadly, Wilkins won’t be behind the wheel during the car’s test run.”I turned 61 last Sunday. I just don’t think I’m going to be able to handle it [without] the reflexes I had 20 or 30 years ago,” he said. “I know several people who would be more than interested.”So do we, and we even suggested Wilkins give the job to fellow jet-junkie Bob Maddox. After jumping from a plane with a pulse jet strapped to his chest, we suspect Maddox would welcome the opportunity to stay on the ground.

Toyota Will Fix or Replace 4 Million Gas Pedals

DETROIT — Toyota said Wednesday it would have to fix the gas pedals of about four million vehicles, including the Camry, to resolve a widespread problem with unintended acceleration.The announcement was another setback for Toyota, which until last year appeared all but unstoppable. Its disciplined business approach, surging profits and reputation for quality helped it take market share from troubled competitors, and win from General Motors the title of world’s largest automaker.But the global downturn has battered Toyota, along with most car companies. And Toyota, which has issued other recalls in recent years, risks losing its standing in the eyes of many consumers as the benchmark for reliability.Three weeks ago, the company said it would recall only driver-side floor mats, which it said could get stuck on the accelerator and cause an accident.Since then, federal regulators have pressured Toyota to do more to insure the safety of several models, including the Camry, three Lexus sedans and its Prius hybrid.

Safety experts said the huge recall could do more damage to Toyota’s reputation, much as Ford and Firestone suffered from rollover problems earlier this decade with the Ford Explorer.“Clearly Toyota has its back up against the wall like it never has before,” said Sean Kane of Safety Research and Strategies, a consulting firm in Rehoboth, Mass.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration started scrutinizing the issue of jammed gas pedals after a high-speed crash in August near San Diego. A Lexus ES350 hit another vehicle at more than 120 miles per hour, killing four people.

Moments before the crash, a passenger called 911 and said the gas pedal was stuck and the driver could not stop.On Nov. 2, Toyota said it would voluntarily recall floor mats that could interfere with the operation of the gas pedals if they became unmoored.

It also said that federal safety administration officials had found no other defect — a statement that the agency quickly noted was “inaccurate and misleading.”Under the new recall, Toyota will shorten gas pedals by three-quarters of an inch, starting in January, and in some cases remove padding from the floor to prevent the pedals from getting stuck on floor mats.The models covered include the 2007-10 Camry sedan and Tundra pickup trucks, 2005-10 Avalon sedan and Tacoma pickup, 2004-9 Prius hybrid, and three models from its Lexus division: the 2007-10 ES350 and 2006-10 IS250 and IS350.

The affected models compose nearly half of all the Toyotas sold in the United States over the last several years.The company also said it would develop replacement pedals that would be available by April, and provide modified floor mats. In addition, Toyota said it would start installing “brake override” systems — which can slow a vehicle down even if its gas pedal is stuck — as standard equipment on many of its new 2010 models.In a statement, the company vowed to continue to investigate the acceleration issues.“The safety of our owners and the public is our utmost concern and Toyota has and will continue to thoroughly investigate and take appropriate measures to address any defect trends that are identified,” the company said.While federal regulators have attributed only a few accidents to unintended acceleration from floor mats, there have been hundreds of reports of incidents linked to problems with Toyota’s gas pedals.Independent vehicle-testing firms have found that acceleration problems can occur in Toyotas even when floor mats were not present.When a car is speeding out of control, some drivers can panic and not know how to react, said Jake Fisher, a senior engineer with Consumer Reports magazine. Part of the problem, he said, is Toyota’s use of a push-button ignition system in many models.“It’s pretty frightening,” said Mr. Fisher. “It’s not easy to control that situation.”A spokesman for Toyota, Irv Miller, said the company had “no indication” that acceleration problems were caused by anything other than floor mats jamming gas pedals.“We are very, very confident that we have addressed this issue,” Mr. Miller told reporters in a conference call on Wednesday. He said the addition of brake override systems would “add that extra level of confidence.”Some consumers question the floor-mat explanation.Sandra Reech, owner of a 2008 Tacoma, said she was driving on an expressway near Pittsburgh in March when her accelerator got stuck.

“I was careening down the highway at well over 100 miles per hour,” she said. “I was standing on the brake and it wouldn’t slow down.”She eventually got the car into neutral and pulled off the road. She then checked the floor mat, and it “wasn’t in the way of the gas pedal,” she said.Mrs. Reech has since removed her floor mats, but still worries. “Every time I get in this vehicle I am afraid of it,” she said.Several lawsuits have been filed against Toyota, including a class-action suit in California. “We feel that Toyota has known about this problem for a long time,” said David Wright, whose firm filed the class-action case on Nov. 5 in Los Angeles.Toyota’s United States sales have dropped 25 percent so far this year, the same as the overall market. But the latest recall could hurt it at a time when it is trying to come back.“Often when people buy a Toyota, they are buying it because it’s trouble- free,” said Mr. Fisher. “If all of a sudden there’s this perception that Toyota isn’t flawless, you may see people think twice.”