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.
The contact owns a 2000 Toyota Echo. While driving approximately 5 mph and attempting to stop at a traffic light, the contact applied the brakes but they locked up. The vehicle crashed into the vehicle in front. The air bags deployed and the passenger side air bag shattered the windshield upon contact. No police report was filed. The vehicle had not been repaired. The failure occurred once before. The vehicle was destroyed. The contact notified the manufacturer who stated that they would repair the vehicle. The contact was told by the manufacturer that the vehicle was included in recall 04V455000 (service brakes, hydraulic: Foundation components: Master cylinder) but the repair work had never been performed. The VIN was unavailable. The current and failure mileages were 213,000.
This is not related to a specific incident, but I feel I should register a complaint about the brakes on the 2000 Toyota Echo. The stopping distance required seems excessive to me, and I feel that it would be nearly impossible to ever cause the car to skid (lock up the wheels) using the breaks if you slammed them on in an emergency despite the car not having anti-lock breaks. All recalls have been done on my car as far as I know. There was one recall which involved them replacing the break booster - I noticed dramatically improved breaking performance immediately after this recall - however after about a year maybe, the car returned to its poor breaking performance. New break pads and shoes, and a brake fluid change did not fix the problem. I called Toyota a while ago to ask about this, and all they could tell me was that my car already had the break recall done many years ago and that there was no new recall. It may be worth mentioning that I also have a 2001 Toyota Echo which does not have the same problem - so I definitely can tell the difference and I know that stopping distance is much worse on my 2000 vehicle.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Gaithersburg, MD, USA