More Recalls Involving Toyota SUVs

What is most troubling is that when the brakes kick in the brake lights do not come on so following traffic has no idea that the SUV is actually slowing down.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been investigating the problem since back in December 2008 after receiving 50 complaints on the problem.

Toyota has known about the problem since 2003. When it first learned about the problem with the stability control system it issued a service bulletin to inform its dealer's service department, and has been fixing the problem on a case-by-case basis since that time. The company stated that more than 50% of the vehicles under this recall had already been repaired.

Toyota will start to mail out letters in May to owners of the SUVs under the warranty. For those who have already paid to get the skid control unit replaced, Toyota stated it will reimburse the costs if the owners mail in their receipt to Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A.

This recall is the sixth separate recall since late January -- for a company that was once synonymous with the word safety. Toyota has recalled over 9 million vehicles since November. Most of these recalls involved sudden acceleration problems. The most recent recall took place a couple weeks ago when it recalled 600,000 Sienna minivans. Another SUV was recalled this month, the Lexus GX 460, also involving its stability control system. Toyota subsequently halted sales of the SUV until it could fix the safety issues with its stability system.

So far, there have been no accidents or reported injuries, but owners of 2003 Toyota Sequoia are encouraged to take their car into their local dealer and see if it is part of the recall.

The question is why Toyota hasn't recalled the SUV years ago when it was aware of the problem. In all, Toyota has received 153 complaints regarding the SUVs control stability system, and if it knew that there was a problem it should have recalled the SUVs immediately.