Toyota Halts Sales of Eight U.S. Models After Recall

Today, Toyota announced that it will temporarily stop building and selling 8 of its models in the American market. The reason for this is because of a gas/accelerator pedal flaw that could wear down and become difficult to depress, slow to spring back or get stuck partly depressed and cause the vehicle to unintentionally speed up. Although the Toyota has described this as a "rare" condition, their reputation is taking more hits as they have had 2 recalls of millions of vehicles in the past 2 months.

The production and selling that will be stopped of the 8 models are: Camry, Corolla and Avalon sedans, Matrix wagon, RAV4 crossover, Tundra pickup, and Highlander and Sequoia sport utility vehicles. All of these are assembled in 5 plants in the U.S. and Canada. The models affected accounted for 57% of Toyota’s American total for 2009.

Although the halting of these models by Toyota is their way of restoring confidence in their name, it might have an adverse effect on consumers. Already because of the recession, the auto industry has suffered in sales, but the new actions being taken by Toyota will likely decrease their sales even more. People who own the cars being recalled will probably have the gas pedal issue in their mind every time they and/or someone they know drive those models. In the news recently, there have been stories of people who have died due to the gas pedal getting stuck and cars crashing because the drivers lose control of them.

Toyota advises drivers who experience or have experienced such a problem to depress the brake firmly and steadily, and then contact a dealer after the vehicle is in a safe location and turned off. However, drivers who have not experienced this problem are advised to wait until Toyota comes up with a remedy before visiting a dealer.

While this might not be good news for Toyota, at least they had the decency to do the right thing. The government did not force them to recall/stop the production of their vehicles with potential issues, they did it willingly. A question of mine that the article does not go into is if the workers in the plants will get paid until Toyota finds a solution and reopens the plants?
Do you guys think this was a good or bad move for Toyota and are you worried if you drive one of these models?