CHP Family Sues Toyota

The crash that started the wave of publicity about Toyota products and claims of unintended acceleration is last summer is on its way to court.

Automotive News (free registration required) reports that relatives of California Highway Patrol Officer Mark Saylor have filed suit against Toyota Motor Company, alleging that the Lexus ES 350 (a dealer loaner vehicle) was "defective" when given to Saylor without "adequate warnings of the danger".

San Diego County investigators say the fatal crash, which followed six minutes of uncontrolled acceleration in which the sedan hit 120 miles per hour, another car, a fence and then flew through the air, crashing in flames and killing Saylor, his wife, teenage daughter and brother-in-law (who was on the phone to 9-1-1 for the final minutes), was caused by the gas pedal getting stuck under a floor mat designed for a larger vehicle.

The spectacular nature of the crash, the fact that it was a Highway Patrolman at the wheel, and the existence of a sensational 9-1-1 audio tape guaranteed lengthy and repeated nationwide coverage.

But it has also caused skepticism...many people finding it hard to believe that a CHP officer, trained to deal with vehicluar emergencies, allowed the car to speed out of control for six minutes, endangering his passengers and others on the road, without shifting to neutral, turning off the engine or finding the bunched up floormat to be the problem and kicking it out of the way.

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NHTSA Buys "Possessed" Lexus; Will Test

The Lexus ES350 described in Congressional testimony on Tuesday as "possessed" is off the streets, four years after the incident.

One day after disclosing that Rhonda Smith sold the car (today's clarification from NHTSA: traded it to a Toyota dealer) after what she called a "near-death" experience and that a family has put 27,000 trouble-free miles on the vehicle since then (something that no one mentioned during Tuesday's hearing), the NHTSA has written that family a check and taken possession (pardon the pun) of the vehicle. They plan to test it.

Full details from the Detroit News.

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"Possessed" Lexus Still On The Road...27,000 Trouble-Free Miles Later

If that were your car, what would you do?

The Wall Street Journal (sub required...comments can be read free) reports that Rhonda Smith sold it...and another family has been driving it since.

That's right. Not  "demanded Toyota replace it under the Lemon Law".

Not "parked it and sued Toyota for its replacement cost".

We need to know just how that went down, I think. Trade it in and let the dealer work out the ethics? Craigslist? eBay? A close friend or neighbor?

And Rhonda? She needs to head right back to Capitol Hill, sit down in front of that committee, under oath, and give a word-by-word description of just how that transaction went down.

I mean, what do you say? "3,000 miles, creampuff, only tried to kill me once"?

"It's to die for?"

"Once you drive it, you'll never stop?"

Did she show them the CarFax?

Rhonda Smith's testimony is that she really believed she was going to die in that car.  The fact that she would then sell it to another human being (even a dealer trade assumes it will end up being driven by someone again) raises questions about whether her testimony was, in fact, true.

As does the fact that the new owners have put 27,000 miles on the ES350 trouble-free.

And where was this fact in Tuesday's hearing? Nowhere. Not mentioned by a single member of the committee, by Toyota Motor Sales USA president Jim Lentz and certainly not by Rhonda Smith.

In this week's Memo From Michael, I make the argument that we don't know enough about what's causing the Toyota incidents to accuse dead or injured drivers of incompetence.

Mrs. Smith is alive and wasn't hurt. The sale of the vehicle opens questions about her actions on the road that day, and the veracity of her testimony Tuesday.

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Lexus ES350 Review

Okay, so the Lexus ES was the butt of the joke in Audi's Super Bowl commercial "Chase" this weekend.




But that was a 90s ES. A lot has changed.

No, this is still not the car you'd want to take up autocross with, but the ES has grown well beyond its gussied-up Toyota Camry roots.

Buying an ES 350 now gets you 272 horsepower from a 3.5 liter, four-cam, 24-valve V6, a six-speed automatic transmission, dual exhausts, a four-wheel independent suspension with gas pressurized shocks and front and rear stabilizer bars.

Drive an ES and a Camry back to back now and you'll be convinced you're driving two different vehicles...and really, you are.

Beyond performance, the Lexus luxury quotient is in full force, making the $34,320 base price seem like a real bargain. Even loaded with options as the tester I drove was (including a $4,250 Mark Levinson Premium Audio Package), $41,340 seems within walking distance of reasonable for this car.

And then there's economy...thanks to the six-cylinder and six-speed, the EPA says the ES 350 is good for 19 city/27 highway miles per gallon.

If you're looking for luxury that whispers rather than shouts and brings its own types of economy (price and fuel economy) to the party, this is a good place to start.

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