Offering Insurance for Nevada

Toyota Canada Inc. is telling its dealers to temporarily suspend the sales of eight of its most popular vehicles as it tries to deal with a recall that has now escalated to almost unprecedented levels.

The company’s Japanese parent will also idle six plants, including two in Canada, for a week starting Feb. 1. The automaker said it recalled the vehicles after it had investigated isolated reports of sticking accelerator pedals in certain vehicles without the presence of floor mats. It is also possible that certain accelerator pedal mechanisms may, in rare instances, stick in a partly depressed position or return slowly to the idle position.

“Suspending sales and production is certainly good to reassure the public that they are serious about doing something, but too many jobs and lost sales are involved for this to be a PR stunt,” said Dan Edmunds, director of vehicle testing at Edmunds.com,an automotive website, in an email. The recall was first issued last week and was issued after a few incidents of the gas pedal sticking on the affected vehicles, including its popular RAV4, Corolla, and Matrix, which are built at its plants in Woodstock and Cambridge.

Both the Ontario plants, and several others in the United States, will stop producing vehicles for the week of Feb. 1 as a result while Toyota uses the parts from those facilities to repair the vehicles affected by the recall, according to Sandy Di Felice, Toyota Canada spokeswoman.

Toyota is considered the gold standard in lean manufacturing, and makes a point of keeping only the necessary inventory on hand at any given time to manufacture its vehicles at its assembly plants. Approximately 270,000 vehicles on the road across Canada are in the recall and the parts it has at its plants will be required to repair those vehicles before more can be produced.

Ms. Di Felice also said the company and its dealers need to ensure every vehicle on the lot has been checked and adheres to the standards set in the recall. “Right now, our focus is on our customer and making sure our existing customers and future customers have confidence in our vehicles,” she said.

Toyota sells roughly 20,000 vehicles in Canada a month. The sales freeze could potentially have major implications on the company and its reputation, especially given the intense competition in the auto industry and the fact that, at this point, Toyota doesn’t know how long it will be halting sales.

In addition to those vehicles produced in Canada certain models of its Camry, Highlander, Tundra, Sequoia, and Avalon are also subject to the recall.

Toyota’s recalls surrounding accelerator pedals has broadened in size and scope in recent days.

Last Thursday it said it would recall another 2.3 million vehicles after announcing in September that reports of unintended acceleration brought on a recall for 4.2 million cars.

Last week’s recall included all of the cars Toyota said Tuesday it would stop selling.

Toyota Canada said last week it knew of five incidents where the accelerator pedal malfunctioned.

Toyota is the biggest car company in the world and one of the biggest car retailers in Canada, selling 205,115 vehicles in this country last year.

“Hopefully this means the fix is very close to being ready, because suspension of production and sales is not tolerable for very long,” Mr. Edmunds said.

———

AFFECTED MODELS

-2009-2010 RAV4

-2009-2010 Corolla

-2009-2010 Matrix

-2005-2010 Avalon

-Certain 2007-2010 Camry

-2010 Highlander

-2007-2010 Tundra

-2008-2010 Sequoia