CarComplaints.com Notes: Beware of the NHTSA complaint data for the 2008 Corolla. It is almost certainly misleading.
The problem with NHTSA data for the 2008 Corolla is that for months on end, the news media repeatedly told the public that several Toyota models have an unintended acceleration defect, & to go to safercar.gov (the NHTSA's website) to file a complaint.
So, the NHTSA received a disproportionate number of complaints about Toyota unintended acceleration issues because of the national news media attention, to the point where now the NHTSA data is unreliable taken in context with any other vehicle that did not receive national news attention.
CarComplaints.com typically receives more complaints per day about vehicles than the NHTSA does, but the news media did not repeatedly say "go to CarComplaints.com to report your Toyota acceleration problems" like they did about the NHTSA -- so although we have less complaint data than the NHTSA for the 2008 Corolla, our data for the Corolla is a far more statistically accurate representation of the Corolla's reliability than what the NHTSA data shows.
10.0
really awful
Crashes / Fires:
1 / 0
Injuries / Deaths:
1 / 0
Average Mileage:
50,784 miles
About These NHTSA Complaints:
This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
Yesterday morning I was driving slowly up to a stop sign. I downshifted and applied the brakes, but the car would not come to a stop. I had to roll through the intersection. This is not the first time that this has occurred since I purchased the vehicle. I continued on. I was driving 30 mph in a 40 mph zone. I again slowed down and downshifted to turn into a driveway. The brakes again failed. It felt as though I could not press down hard enough on the brakes to stop. I could not turn out of the way of a garbage can and pile of rocks, just missing a mailbox. There is now minor, cosmetic damage to the front of my vehicle. This problem has inconsistently occurred over the last year. Shortly after I bought the vehicle, I brought it back due to the brakes not feeling right, and a metal on metal sound that occurred when I pressed on the brakes. Toyota looked at the brakes and said that they were behaving normally. Again, this morning I brought the vehicle in because I could not control it in yesterday's incident. The service department at Toyota looked at the vehicle, test drove it with me, but the issue did not occur so there was nothing more they could do about it.
- Gardiner, NY, USA
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- Tampa, FL, USA