All Entries Tagged With: "smoke"
Toyota Recalls 2007-09 Tundra Trucks Over Power Window Glitch
As you have undoubtedly heard, Toyota plans on recalling 2.47 million vehicles in the U.S. (7.43 million globally) to fix a power window issue that some news agencies are erroneously reporting as a “fire risk.”
Toyota has recalled 337,100 2007-2009 Toyota Tundra pickups to fix a power window glitch caused by an uneven application of special lubrication.
UPDATE: A new statement has been added to some news reports stating “documents filed by U.S. safety regulators show customers have reported 161 fires and nine injuries.” We have found that this “fire” is really classified as an “electrical fire” such as when the switch gets hot and smokes. Further analysis of the report shows that there were 161 incidents of smoke out of 2.4 million vehicles which is 0.0067% of the total recalled. Not really a big fire risk.
This is unfortunate – and borderline irresponsible – because while the recall effects all switches, the risk of fire is limited to switches that:
- Are “sticking” (this isn’t every switch…not even close)
- Have been “fixed” with a conventional lubricant like WD40
- Because the switch was never, ever designed for conventional lubrication, there is a chance that switches which have been lubed with something like WD40 could catch on fire
This explanation of Toyota’s massive recall is detailed, nuanced, and entirely too difficult to explain in 2 seconds. SO, most media outlets are reporting a global vehicle recall number (7.4 million) along with the phrase “fire risk” and leaving it at that.
This is BS, no?
