Need a mesothelioma lawyer? We will fight for you!
› $150,000,000 verdict in personal injury case
All the news about Toyota’s record-breaking recalls and its week-old production and sales suspension have made it easy to forget about the Pontiac Vibe, the hybrid car that General Motors manufactured for the 2009 and 2010 model years.
Indiana-based CTS Corporation is cooperating with Toyota by sending new gas pedal assemblies to replace the ones Toyota claims are potentially defective, but the supplier says that the new pedals won’t solve the sudden acceleration problem that afflicts so many Toyota vehicles.
Yesterday, Toyota ran full-page advertisements in more than 20 major American newspapers to tell customers that its decision to suspend production and sales of many of its top-selling vehicles is just a “Temporary pause. To put you first,” as the headline proclaims.
Toyota announced that it will recall more than a million other cars and trucks in the United States over concerns that the vehicles could accelerate suddenly and unintentionally.
Last week, Toyota announced a recall of approximately 2.3 million cars and trucks in the United States because of faulty throttle assemblies that could wear over time, causing the accelerator pedal to stick or return to idle too slowly. This week, Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper reports that Toyota is expanding that recall to include about 2 million vehicles in Europe.
Earlier this month, the Associated Press exposed yet another disturbing Chinese trade secret when it reported that some manufacturers in China are making children’s jewelry with the highly toxic metal cadmium. Children’s jewelry now joins the growing list of dangerous and sometimes deadly products pouring into the United States from China – a list that includes toys covered with lead paint, pet food and baby formula tainted with melamine, sulfuric drywall that has ruined thousands of homes, and other poorly made or defective merchandise.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the world’s largest retailer, is pulling items of children’s jewelry known or suspected to be manufactured with high levels of toxic cadmium from store shelves. The move follows an Associated Press investigation published earlier this week which found some China-based manufacturers were creating children’s jewelry with varying amounts of cadmium — a heavy medal considered by the federal government to be one of the most toxic substances on earth.
Yoshi Inaba, Toyota’s highest ranking executive in the United States, says that his company’s latest recall of millions of vehicles has taught Toyota some valuable lessons. Speaking to an audience gathered at the Automotive News World Congress in Detroit, Inaba seemed eager to hit the re-set button with the American public through admission of Toyota’s past errors.
On the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s priority list of the 275 most toxic substances in the environment, the heavy metal cadmium is ranked seventh. Unfortunately, in an investigative report, the Associated Press found that cadmium is being used in large quantities to make children’s jewelry and other products that are sold in the United States. The country of origin for almost all of these products is China.
Toyota’s reputation for quality and safety continues to take a beating, not only in the United States but throughout the world. The automaker is now recalling approximately 43,000 cars in China to repair a defect that could cause the engine’s oil to leak. The Lexus ES 350, which is one of the eight Toyota models blamed in the United States for unintended acceleration problems, is one of the models included in the China recall. The others are the Lexus RX 350, the Highlander sports utility vehicle, and the Previa minivan.
![[ Beasley Allen Law Firm Logo ]](http://www.southerninjurylawyer.com/wp-content/themes/system-unity/images/logo.png){kind=logo}