Toyota 4Runner, Sienna Recall Blamed On Remote Starters

A small recall Toyota is conducting in several U.S. Gulf states might help advance arguments by safety critics who argue Toyota has problems with its electronics systems that could affect driver safety.

The automaker is recalling 363 Toyota 4Runners and Sienna minivans in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas, according to files released on Tuesday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The company discovered a problem on March 6, after an employee tested a 4Runner. The dashboard showed warning lights, and the speedometer and odometer did not work correctly.

Toyota found that a remote starter, which allows drivers to start a car from several feet away, was interfering with the vehicle's main controller area network. Remote starter interference could cause problems with the antilock brakes, vehicle-stability control, airbags and power steering, according to the carmaker. It could also mess with the keyless entry sytem, temperature display, fuel efficiency gauge and compass, Toyota said.

The automaker will replace the remote starters with ones approved by Toyota.

Although the small five-state recall is not related to the sudden acceleration problems that plagued the company in 2009 and 2010, Toyota has battled allegations that its electronics systems can cause problems like sudden acceleration.

Toyota is facing nearly 200 lawsuits claiming that unintended acceleration caused accidents and deaths in 2009 and 2010. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration last year cleared Toyota of having vehicles with malfunctioning electronics, but the issue is still being raised in court where Toyota is being sued by crash victims and their families. A report by NASA, which studies electronics interference issues in jets, satellites and space shuttles, showed Toyota cars had several places where sudden acceleration problems could occur. But the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration decided in February 2011 that none of the problems rose to a level of concern and determined Toyota's electronics to be safe.

The problem with the remote starters does not prove Toyota vehicles have an electronics issue because the parts were installed after the vehicles left Toyota's hands. The vehicles are distributed by Gulf States Toyota, a separate company that installed the remote starter before selling the vehicles to customers. Audiovox made the remote starters.

Audiovox spokesman Glenn Wiener told The Huffington Post that the remote starters were only offered on a couple hundred Toyota vehicles and were not installed on any other brand or car. The remote starters are hardwired into the vehicle's computer system.

Sean Kane, president of safety consulting firm Safety Research & Strategies, has been a vocal critic of Toyota's electronics systems. Still, he said the issue related to the aftermarket remote starter can't be entirely blamed on Toyota since this part was installed after the car left Toyota's hands.

"They're going to say, well, they're altering the vehicle in ways we couldn't anticipate," Kane said. "What's interesting is how these guys are doing modifications that alter vehicles in ways that are potentially hazardous. The reality is [Toyota] should be advising against this."

Toyota dealt with a similar issue in the past. In July 2010, a Toyota Yaris driver near Quebec complained that his engine would start revving unexpectedly. After investigating, the company discovered that an aftermarket cruise control system and a walkie-talkie were to blame.

The driver would take a walkie-talkie and put it in a pocket near the left side of the steering wheel, near the controls to the cruise control. Interference triggered by the walkie-talkie caused a surge in the gas pedal, resulting in the engine's revving. Toyota told dealers to stop selling that cruise control system, manufactured by Rostra Precision Controls.

Last month Toyota told The Huffington Post that the walkie-talkie and cruise control issue is not its fault because the part was installed by dealers, not by the carmaker. Toyota tests its products to make sure its electronic parts don't interfere with one another, a spokesman said at the time.

Toyota said it did not have a comment on the remote starter recall.

Comments

[oldsquare]

04:28 PM on 03/28/2012

Seems to me that the most important point here is whether or not the electronics are properly shielded and protected from interference. The article did say the remote starter was hard-wired into the computer which makes the interference issue more complex, however. An important question is whether or notToyota looked beyond the compatibility of its own electronics to their susceptibility or lack thereof from outside interference.

[RecreationalPilot]

01:48 PM on 03/28/2012

Whenever I think of Audiovox, I also think of a brand called GPX.

[WesHopper]

01:46 PM on 03/28/2012

This is just the tip of the iceberg. We live in a wireless society with millions of sources of radio frequency interference. There are also solar flareups that can damage unprotected electronics. All aviation critical electronics has to pass stringent safety tests relative to interference (among other things.) Toyota and Nissan and others have chosen to put safety critical electronics in cars with no more protection than your MP3 player has. Your acceleration, steering and brakes can all be electronic on newer cars, with no manual backup. Think carefully before you buy.

[bikeman980204]

04:57 PM on 03/28/2012

This is very ill informed. All car makers test critical safety systems (ABS, ESC, SRS etc) as well as the non safety systems, HVAC etc. extensively. To equate a regulated product (cars) to unregulated consumer electronics (MP3 players) is simply way off the mark. The development environment for cars is much closer to planes than consumer electronics.
If your ABS or ESC fails, the base brakes are unaffected; ditto for steering and any other embedded system I know of.

[WesHopper]

09:12 PM on 03/28/2012

I'm sorry, but you are sadly misinformed. I worked for 20 years in the commercial aircraft engineering environment, and the analytical work and flight testing that we did was orders of magnitude more than the auto makers are doing. They only test for performance and do nothing that would equate to a failure modes and effects analysis in aviation. A throttle runaway like the ones that Toyota has experienced would never happen in aviation. The same poorly tested kinds of design can now be found as well in brakes and steering in several manufacturer's vehicles. This is true in the newer vehicle that have no mechanical links at all between the driver's controls and the actual function. It's all 'drive by wire'. If the electronics to the brakes fail, there is no backup. Look under the hood.

[pointlight]

01:31 PM on 03/28/2012

If you want a car with very high reliability of a toyota, just buy a toyota, seriously. Jusk ask any long time toyota owner.

[rudy in la]

01:16 PM on 03/28/2012

When manufacturers say use only factory approved parts, they mean it and there is good reason for it. I don't see how this is a Toyota issue, unless these devices are Toyota dealer installed.

[Pickletickle]

12:50 PM on 03/28/2012

Junk.

[bikeman980204]

12:43 PM on 03/28/2012

I am happy to criticize Toyota when warranted. But in this case, Toyota Motor Co is entirely free of blame. The retail dealer (independent shop , not part of Toyota) trying to get extra margin selling incompatible aftermarket equipment to the retail buyer is responsible here. It is well known that aftermarket electronic devices can and do interfere with the car's electronic systems. During development embedded systems are tested to ensure they do not interfere with one another. It is impossible for Toyota or any other car maker to engineer a solution for a device they are not aware of . Each aftermarket device will be unique in term of the RF or EM interference risk it poses. So, car buyers be educated. When a retail dealer offers you an aftermarket accessory for your car, make sure the package label says something about standards (SAE, ISO etc) or has been certified by a competent 3rd party e.g NSF. If the parts have been tested to standards, the AM maker will say so on the packet. If not, he won't and the chances are it will interfere with your car. This holds for Toyota and every other car maker.

[Ann Oid]

12:06 PM on 03/28/2012

"The vehicles are distributed by Gulf States Toyota, a separate company that installed the remote starter before selling the vehicles to customers."

I am no fan of Toyota, not by a long shot (seriously, I could go on for pages about what I don't like about Toyota). But Toyota can not be held at fault here--if anyone, it's Gulf States Toyota (NOT owned by Toyota) and the remote starter supplier (also not owned by Toyota).

Dealers are NOT owned by the auto companies; most states have franchise laws that prohibit factory-owned stores. Dealers do pretty much what they want, and they are the actual purchaser of the vehicle. Toyota sells cars to Gulf States, or Joe Blow Toyota, not to the public.

But this will happen again. More computer power in your average base model compact car than in the Apollo spacecrafts (and soon to come, self-driving cars!), then add individual modifications (remote start, chip upgrades, aftermarket nav systems...), phones, I-pads, and other electronics--it's inevitable that they will interact in unpredictable ways. No way to test for every possible variation.

[PragmaticStatistic]

12:00 PM on 03/28/2012

If a vehicle remote starting device and a walkie-talkie can cause havoc with a vehicle as described in this article, what about all the other devices we use such as cell phones? If Google's mapping vehicles were able to pick up transmissions from wireless home computer networks on a drive by, could that same signal interfere with the electronics in a car that is passing any house with a wireless network? And, what if it received multiple signals at the same time?

I once worked for a company that manufactured and installed a hard-wired automated electronic shade control system for commercial buildings, every so often we would receive complaints about phantom shades suddenly operating by themselves. It did not happen in every building we installed the product. Thus, we suspected signal interference from other devices in the buildings experiencing the problem. If interference from devices outside the vehicle is the problem behind Toyota's acceleration issue, then Toyota has a major issue to solve because we had a very difficult time solving the problem because each building was unique. With a vehicle on the move, the conditions are always changing.

When my 2008 Corolla computer died, it was fine until I passed this one spot and it suddenly died, rendering the car totally useless. The computer had to be replaced.

[Penelope Pitstop]

11:39 AM on 03/28/2012

I hope those poor familys get billions!

[jsccbaker]

11:27 AM on 03/28/2012

The consumer bought the vehicle with problem electronics on it AT A TOYOTA DEALERSHIP. What dealership? A TOYOTA dealer. If a TOYOTA dealer sells defective products, it IS TOYOTA's problem and accountability for the problems.

[Bogey907]

11:40 AM on 03/28/2012

Toyota Corporation doesn't own the dealerships. They are independent businesses.

[P51MUSTANG]

12:38 PM on 03/28/2012

That's too complex for him to understand.

[slocomgp]

12:49 PM on 03/28/2012

Is it posted all over the dealership?