Quality Weenie

Do Not Buy Lexus, Toyota Halts Sales

Consumer Reports has come out and said the Lexus GX460 is hazardous and could roll over so Toyota has halted sales so they could investigate.

The carmaker issued the temporary "stop sale" within hours after the popular consumer magazine raised the handling problem. It reflects Toyota's attempt to respond more quickly to safety concerns after being castigated by the federal government for dragging its feet on recalls to address faulty gas pedals.

You bet your sweet ass Toyota is going to halt sales and jump on this quickly, just to prove they really do care about their consumers.

It's a marketing ploy to put them in a good light.

Because they should already know Consumer Reports did something to make the vehicle so it would roll over or Toyota really needs to go out of business. Because safety testing should have been done throughly to already know if it will or will not roll over.

There are government tests that have to be done and signed off on to comply with regulations before this vehicle is even allowed to be sold. Those tests and regulations do consist of manuvers that would test roll over ability.

So one of two things happened, Consumer Reports handled the car and made a situation possible that any SUV/Truck type vehicle would roll over no matter what or Toyota signed off without testing (I highly doubt that) or they knew about the roll over ability and allowed it be pass because maybe the situation was so outragious they thought it would never happen.

In this case, Consumer Reports said the Lexus problem occurred during tests on its track. In a standard test, the driver approached a turn unusually fast, then released the accelerator pedal to simulate the response of an alarmed driver. This caused the rear of the vehicle to slide outward.

Under normal circumstances, the electronic stability control should quickly correct the loss of control and keep the SUV on its intended path. But with the GX 460, the stability control took too long to adjust, which could cause a rollover accident if one of the sliding wheels were to strike the curb or another obstacle, said Gabriel Shenhar, Consumer Reports' senior auto test engineer, one of four testers who experienced the problem.

So we see the problem really isn't the SUV, it's the computer not reacting quickly enough.

Hmmm, where have we heard about potential computers on Toyota's not reacting quickly enough before?

Posted by Quality Weenie at April 14, 2010 08:37 AM