Toyota dealers busy handling recall work

Customers filled the waiting room at Capital Toyota on Monday as the dealership's 14 service workers attempted to keep up with recalled vehicles.

With multiple recalls under way, some vehicles can be fixed in 30 minutes, while others take hours, repair technician David Kitchens said.

Charles Poore brought his Toyota Tundra in for a recall repair, but hadn't experienced any problems with his vehicle.

"Toyota has less problems than Ford, Chrysler, Chevy and GM," said Mr. Poore. "Every car manufacturer has got issues."

Mr. Poore is confident that despite the negative publicity, Toyotas are still a better value competitors' vehicles.

"Toyota is a quality car; you can drive it 200,000 miles without a thing happening. If something happened to mine today, I'd buy another," Mr. Poore said.

At the same time, technicians focused on their recall repairs.

"I've never been involved with a campaign like this, and I've been in the business for 15 years," said Mr. Kitchens, who gives a free oil change to drivers of recalled vehicles. "They're sending the recall notifications in waves, so we've got mostly Camrys in here, the next wave will be Avalons."

Depending on the type of vehicle involved, a repair may involve removing part of the accelerator pedal to prevent it from getting stuck, installing a tiny piece of steel, or modifying the floor mat to allow more room between the floor and the accelerator pedal, Mr. Kitchens said.

Keeping track of which car needs which repairs is handled by computer to reduce error.

"We'll all be doing this all day, and we have to work in the other customer work as well," Mr. Kitchens said.

On Saturday, the service team worked until 7 p.m. to meet recall-driven demand, service employee Steve Harvey said. He also reported that they were modifying, or flashing, vehicle computers to ensure that the brake pedal will overpower the accelerator, and stop the car's acceleration if the brake is forcefully applied for several seconds.

Capital Toyota operations manager Gene McGee said the dealership could still sell new recalled models, provided buyers are willing to wait for their new car to be repaired prior to taking possession.

"If you want a Tundra, we'll do a fix on the Tundra if there's a campaign on the vehicle," said Mr. McGee. "We're still selling cars."

"I've been here a long time," Mr. McGee said. "Toyota will overcome this."

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