Toyota Recalls 75,000 Prius Hybrids
by Kara DiCamillo, Newport, Rhode Island on 10.14.05
One of our favorites here on Treehugger is Toyota's Prius and when we caught wind of this story we felt a need to keep all of you hybrid fans in the know. Toyota announced yesterday that they have recalled 75,000 Prius Hybrids because their engines can stall due to an electrical problem. The cars involved are some 2004 and early model 2005's. Toyota's spokesman Xavier Dominicis said they started investigating when about 68 reports came through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Toyota's says it will voluntarily recall the cars and repair them for free and Dominicis stressed that "the defect isn't related to the Prius's gas-electric hybrid system and could happen in any vehicle." Thankfully, no one has been injured and apparently the vehicle's electric motor will continue operating, in a limited capacity, so drivers can steer to the side of the road. We found it interesting that we couldn't find any information on Toyota's site - maybe it's just that they haven't had time to update it yet. Via ::Yahoo News
Thanks for posting the news. But a company that updates their website with the latest info? Is there such a thing?
I was looking for information on this recall today to see if our 2002 Prius was affected, and there is still nothing available on Toyota's website. That's scary to me. In fact, there was a prior recall on our model, and there was no mention of that. If you search all of toyota.com using their search engine for "recall", you will get 0 results. Amazing!
On Toyota.com, the company is quick to toot its own horn. But, when it comes to vital information (like recalls) the information is either NOT posted... or hidden so deeply within the site, it might as well be omitted. This is disappointing and frustrating.