One is the now infamous floor mat which entraps the accelerator pedal and the second is the "sticking pedal issue". Both, Lentz says, will be brought under control.
TMS's head says Toyota didn't know about the sticky accelerator until October 2009. When asked how come Toyota did not know about 2,000 reports of unwanted acceleration in the last 10 years, or the 800 accidents with 19 of them resulting in fatalities, Lentz had this to say:
"The number of deaths, the number of accidents, whether it's one or whether it's 2,000, doesn't really make a difference. We've been investigating this for a long time, and we are quite confident about this fixes."
Toyota does not blame any other part in the affected cars than the pedal itself, despite some suggestions that at fault may be either an electronic component or some other part in the pedal assembly.
As for the fix announced today, Lentz said repairs will begin later this week, but does not say when the mammoth operation will end.
In all, the six minute interview left us with a some type of a bitter image. Jim Lentz only talked about things everybody knew already and he cleverly dodged the "when did you know" question, he swirled around the "how will this impact Toyota" question and shed no better light on the world's biggest carmaker's biggest recall ever...
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