Category Archives: Brands

Details On The Big Toyota Recall

2010MatrixHey Cool Car Fans,

I’ve had a number of clients calling and asking me about the Toyota recall that’s taking place. Following is an article that I’m posting here at CoolCarGuy.com that has been floating around the dealerships the last day.

Hopefully, you’ll find it informative and I’m sure Toyota will get it figured out.

Toyota Temporarily Suspends Sales of Selected Vehicles

TORRANCE, Calif., January 26, 2010 – – Toyota Motor Sales (TMS), U.S.A., Inc., today announced that it is instructing Toyota dealers to temporarily suspend sales of eight models involved in the recall for sticking accelerator pedal, announced on January 21, 2010.

“Helping ensure the safety of our customers and restoring confidence in Toyota are very important to our company,” said Group Vice President and Toyota Division General Manager Bob Carter. “This action is necessary until a remedy is finalized. We’re making every effort to address this situation for our customers as quickly as possible.”

Toyota announced it would recall approximately 2.3 million vehicles to correct sticking accelerator pedals on specific Toyota Division models. Toyota has investigated isolated reports of sticking accelerator pedal mechanisms in certain vehicles without the presence of floor mats. There is a possibility that certain accelerator pedal mechanisms may, in rare instances, mechanically stick in a partially depressed position or return slowly to the idle position.

Toyota’s accelerator pedal recall and suspension of sales is confined to the following Toyota Division vehicles:

2009-2010 RAV4,
2009-2010 Corolla,
2009-2010 Matrix,
2005-2010 Avalon,
Certain 2007-2010 Camry,
2010 Highlander,
2007-2010 Tundra,
2008-2010 Sequoia

No Lexus Division or Scion vehicles are affected by these actions. Also not affected are Toyota Prius, Tacoma, Sienna, Venza, Solara, Yaris, 4Runner, FJ Cruiser, Land Cruiser and select Camry models, including all Camry hybrids, which will remain for sale.

Due to the sales suspension, Toyota is expected to stop producing vehicles on the following production lines for the week of February 1 to assess and coordinate activities. The North America vehicle production facilities affected are:

• Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Canada (Corolla, Matrix, and RAV4)
• Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Indiana (Sequoia and Highlander)
• Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky – Line 1 (Camry and Avalon)
• Subaru of Indiana Automotive, Inc. (Camry)
• Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Texas (Tundra)

No other North American Toyota vehicle production facilities are affected by the decision to stop production.

The sticking accelerator pedal recall is separate from the on-going recall of Toyota and Lexus vehicles to reduce the risk of pedal entrapment by incorrect or out of place accessory floor mats. Approximately 1.7 million Toyota Division vehicles are subject to both separate recall actions.

The latest news about the sticking accelerator pedal recall:

Frequently Asked Questions for the Sticking Accelerator Pedal Recall (Jan. 22, 2010)

Toyota Files Voluntary Safety Recall on Select Toyota Division Vehicles for Sticking Accelerator Pedal (Jan. 21, 2010)

The latest news about Toyota’s consumer safety advisory for potential floor mat interference with the accelerator pedal in certain Toyota and Lexus vehicles:

Setting the Record Straight (Dec. 23, 2009)

A Healthy Discussion on Safety (Dec. 10, 2009)

Toyota Announces Details of Remedy to Address Potential Accelerator Pedal Entrapment (Nov. 25, 2009)

Unintended Acceleration: Toyota Addresses the Issues (Nov. 6, 2009)

Toyota’s Statement Regarding NHTSA News Release (Nov. 4, 2009)

Toyota Begins Interim Notification to Owners Regarding Future Voluntary Safety Recall Related to Floor Mats (Nov. 2, 2009)

NHTSA report (Nov. 2, 2009)

Toyota owner letter (Nov. 2, 2009)

Toyota Consumer Safety Advisory: Potential Floor Mat Interference with Accelerator Pedal (Sept. 29, 2009)

Toyota/Carpeted/All-Weather Floor Mat Inspection, Application & Installation Instructions (Sept. 29, 2009)

Toyota Carpet Floor Mat Application Information Chart (Sept. 29, 2009)

Toyota All-Weather Floor Mat Quick Reference Chart (Sept. 29, 2009)

NOTE TO CONSUMERS: We’ve received a number of comments and questions about the floor mat issue and understand the safety concerns. We want to be responsive, but the Toyota USA Newsroom is not intended as a place for consumer complaints, or detailed information about any vehicle features, specs or capabilities. These types of concerns are best handled by our Customer Experience Center where they will be routed to the appropriate customer service representative for Toyota, Scion or Lexus. You can reach our customer service representatives by calling 1-800-331-4331. Prefer to email or chat? Simply access our website email or live chat links for Toyota, Scion or Lexus.

MEDIA CONTACTS ONLY:

Toyota Environmental, Safety and Quality Communications
Brian Lyons (310) 468-2552
John Hanson (310) 468-4718

Toyota Engineering and Manufacturing North America
Mike Goss
Mike.Goss@TEMA.Toyota.com
(859) 803-1698

Media Web site: www.toyotanewsroom.com
Public Web site: http://www.toyota.com and http://www.lexus.com
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John Boyd

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant with his license at a car dealership in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter @coolcarguy

GM Can’t Sell Saab, But Ford Sold Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin

SaabStoryHey Cool Car Fans,

It’s not often that I weigh in on what automobile manufacturer’s do with their brands, but GM has me slightly ticked off and they should have you a bit steamed as well.

GM, formerly known as General Motors, but now referred to by many as Government Motors, after taking $50 billion dollars of tax payer money, can’t seem to figure out how to sell one of their brands, in this case Saab.

They’ve had a number of offers on the table and they were not good enough for GM, mainly because they still have to be involved with Saab during a transition period, but instead they are talking about closing the Saab brand down altogether.  As you will recall they already did this with Pontiac and Saturn.

You may not be a fan of Saab, but there are 5,000 people in the U.S. who are employed because of this brand and another 15,000 worldwide. Didn’t the U.S. government give General Motors a whopping $50 billion to save jobs? I think anyone reading this article could run a car company with $50 billion at your disposal.  Yet, for some reason GM can’t seem to get it figured out.

Saab has been around for 60 years and there are plenty of Saab enthusiasts who drive the brand and GM’s response is that it’s a money losing brand. No doubt it’s a money losing brand because GM owns the company and if GM knew how to manage a car company they wouldn’t have had to take $50 billion from tax payers to run their company.

However, Ford Motor company that didn’t take money from the government in the bailout offer was able to sell Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin and soon to be Volvo. It just goes to show you, that it’s much easier to come to negotiations with saving brands when you are dealing with your own money instead of someone else’s money. In this case, it’s your and my tax dollars that are paying for GM to play like they are the 800lb Gorilla and they are really acting more like a chimp or a chump.

GM needs to sell Saab and quit screwing around with the brand. What many don’t realize who are not Saab owners is the minute that brand is shut down by GM, their vehicles are pretty much worthless. I’m already seeing it with Saturn and Pontiac where many people won’t even look at buying those vehicles now that GM has blown them up, unless they can get an unbelievable deal. Banks won’t finance them once they are gone either, so they will go the way of the classic car and someday they may be worth money if you have cash or a specialized lender that’s willing to give you a loan.

All GM is doing is passing their losses on to the consumer again because of their own greed and mis-management of their brands.  In the meantime, they show us commercials that they are a new car company, but it appears that it’s hard to teach an old dog, new tricks, like how to spin off a car company that you don’t want in your portfolio.

Although, they did figure out how to do it with Hummer, but those negotiations were back in June when they were filing for bankruptcy protection and still trying to figure out, if they had a future (Chinese Company Is Buying G.M.’s Hummer).

For more on this topic, visit Automotive News for details.

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John Boyd

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant with his license at a car dealership in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter @coolcarguy

Cool Car Shot – Robbie’s 2003 Mustang GT

GT1Hey Cool Car Fans,

Yesterday, I had a guy send me photos of his 2003 Mustang GT that he asked me to help him trade on another Mustang that I have on consignment.

The photos were very well done and his 2003 Mustang GT looked extremely clean and in great shape, so I decided to post them here at CoolCarGuy.com for you to check out.

Here’s a run down on the 2003 Mustang GT and this one in particular…

2003 Mustang GT 4.6L 260 hp V8
GT premium package with bullet/mach 1 interior package

GT3Grey leather interior
5-Speed Manual

Overdrive
46k miles
Low jack
Extended transferable warranty
Straight piped exhaust
Lowered 2 inches
Mach 1000 audio system with factory amps and 2 10 inch subs that came from the factory
Custom billet grille

If you’re interested in checking out this vehicle let me know and I’ll track Robbie down and see what he wants for it.

GT2

This could be a great vehicle for someone who is looking for a great Mustang without having to pay a fortune for a new one or the older 1960’s body style.

It’s well equipped and the price range on these varies dramatically depending on condition and features.  In this case, he has a killer sound system built into the trunk of the vehicle.  You can see it in the photo below, so that’s one less expense you’ll have to spend on tricking this vehicle out.

The Mustang also gets pretty good gas mileage for the amount of horsepower that it’s pushing.   You should expect around 18 in the city and 24 – 26 on the highway.  It’s hard to find that kind of fuel economy in a

GT4

performance vehicle, but this 4.6l V8 delivers pretty good gas mileage for the amount of power under the hood.  It looks great too!

You can always reach me using the Contact link on the top right hand side of this page.
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John Boyd

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant with his license at a car dealership in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter @coolcarguy

Cool Car Shot – Photos Of Rob’s Very Cool BMW 335i With Xdrive

BMW01 Last year I sold a 2005 Pontiac GTO for a client, Rob, that he had placed on consignment with me. He was in Russia at the time, doing some work and needed to sell it, so I helped him sell his vehicle as I’ve helped hundreds of people do over the years. I got an email from him back in September that after several years in Russia, the company he was working for was transferring him to North Dakota.

Russia and North Dakota have the same type of climate, so someone at his company must have a sense of humor.  He said he was going to a place in the middle of nowhere in North Dakota – it’s a big State.  He wanted something fun to drive on those long road trips and that was also reliable.  He decided on a BMW – “The Ultimate Driving Machine”.

BMW02 He asked me to help him get his new vehicle and he was kicking around between the BMW 135i or the 335i with Xdrive, formerly known as the 335xi.  We landed on the latter and I tracked him down the exact vehicle that he wanted with all the features he was going to need for living in North Dakota.  He only had about a week to get his vehicle before he was off to North Dakota and he wanted the window tinting done and a clear bra, but I got it all wrapped up for him within his deadline.

I met him at Murray Motors in Denver with my friend Bob Oetjen to deliver the vehicle and after the delivery I asked him to send me some photos of his very cool new car.  This morning he wrote me the following and sent along the photos you see in this post…

BMW03 The Sweetest Thing the movie “Hey John,

Here are some pics of the BMW with the tint. Let me know if you want bigger versions of the pics for your website. The car is awesome and a blast to drive. Very happy with it. No snow yet here in North Dakota, but it is cold. So the heated seats and steering wheel get used all the time.

Thanks again for doing a great job helping me find the BMW.

-Rob”

Nice job Rob!  Glad you love it and it’s keeping you warm.

BMW04His BMW 335i is probably my favorite production vehicle with the twin-turbos and you can’t argue with the great looking lines of this car that so many car companies want and try to duplicate.  It’s definitely a blast to drive!  I can’t say that about every BMW, but the 328i with the straight six cylinder and the 335i with twin turbos rock!  The Xdrive is an added bonus giving them all-wheel-drive handling and great performance in all driving conditions.

335i Sedan

Peerless performance.

Starting at $40,300 MSRP
3.0-liter, turbocharged inline 6-cylinder engine
300 horsepower
Rear-wheel drive
26 mpg hwy*

More detailed specifications

3.0-liter, 300-horsepower, dual overhead cam (DOHC), inline 24-valve 6-cylinder engine with aluminum engine block, Advanced Turbo technology, piezo direct injection, and Double-VANOS steplessly variable valve timing

Dynamic Stability Control (DSC), including Brake Fade Compensation, Start-off Assistant, Brake Drying, and Brake Stand-by features, with Dynamic Traction Control (DTC), xDrive all-wheel-drive system, 4-wheel ventilated anti-lock disc brakes with Dynamic Brake Control (DBC), Twin-tube gas-pressure shock absorbers, Engine-speed-sensitive, variable-assist power steering, Double-pivot type front suspension with dual forged-aluminum lower arms (328i xDrive and 335i xDrive have steel lower arms and a steel subframe, plus an aluminum thrust plate), Hill Descent Control, Chrome-plated exhaust tips

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John Boyd

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant with his license at a car dealership in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter @coolcarguy

The Bugatti Veyron Top Gear Fastest Car In The World Video

Audi R8 1Hey Cool Car Fans,

One of my friends pointed out to me today that I have turned a number of people on to one of the coolest videos on YouTube that you’ll ever see. It’s about the world’s fastest road car the Bugatti Veyron, but that I didn’t actually have the video or even an article about the car on CoolCarGuy.com.

Needless to say, I took a bit of a verbal lashing for that, so i figured I had better stop that immediately and make sure that I got the video up here for visitors to checkout.  I’ll put it at the bottom of this article and it’s from the show Top Gear when they had a chance to test this vehicle out on VW’s top secret test track in Germany.

The video is about 10 minutes long, but it is totally worth taking 10 minutes out of your busy schedule to watch it.  Even if you’ve seen it before, it’s over-the-top fantastic.  Probably the coolest car ever built for the road, but let me clarify that statement.

A few months ago, I was playing golf with some chaps from California. My friend Walt, had invited me to play in a charity golf tournament for the American Cancer Society at Pradera, a fantastic golf course I might add, and we had our picture taken with the coach of the Denver Nuggets, George Karl, who was there.  I don’t remember what hole we were on, but it was one of those deals where you could win a car for a hole in one or something like that and he spotted me as I came up since I was wearing one of my usual CoolCarGuy.com shirts.

He said, “CoolCarGuy.com, so you’re The Cool Car Guy?  Okay, Cool Car Guy, what’s the coolest car?” You know, when you have about ten seconds to respond to a question that everyone is waiting for you to answer, it was one of those moments, but I was ready.  After all, I am The Cool Car Guy.

Audi R8 2Without missing a beat I said, “The Audi R8.” and everyone in my party looked kind of puzzled at me.  Come on, everyone has their favorite cars. As The Cool Car Guy I try to be an agnostic when it comes to cars because a cool car is really whatever is cool to you.  I actually tell people that all the time, “Whatever is cool to you makes it a cool car.”, but he asked me the question and I love cars – period, end of story.  The Audi R8 is one of those cars that is an engineering marvel and an incredible piece of machinery for the money, complete with carbon fiber and lots of super cool sex appeal.

However, I was also trying to think of a really cool car that I actually see around as well, like a Porsche 911 for example that is the R8 competitor. Not that there are not other super cool cars, from a variety of manufacturer’s, including the Nissan GT-R, which is another favorite of mine for the money, but I was thinking of cars that I actually see and go “I want to drive that!”.  Rarely, but once in a while I will see the Audi R8. And when you do see one, you say to the person next to you, “Wow.  That’s a cool car!” thinking it must have cost around $200,000 plus because it looks like it did.

The R8 is a car that starts for under $125,000 retail, actually starting at $114,200 for 2010, but they can go up from there and it can go from 0-60 in 4.4 seconds, with a top speed of 187mph, it averages 15 mpg with over 420hp and it looks like an extremely cool car.  You would expect a pro-athlete to own one of these just for kicks on their days off.  That would be the Audi R8.  I know, it’s not a Corvette, Viper, Ferrari, Porsche, Lotus, or any number of the American Muscle cars, that came to mind, but if you watch the video at the end of this article, you’ll see the reason why I picked this baby.

George looked at me, laughed and said, “An Audi. I thought only women drove Audi’s.” .  Which was pretty darn funny and everyone laughed at my expense, including me.  He was definitely a funny guy and I walked right into that one with my answer. I started thinking, “I don’t think he has had any of his players pull up in one yet and offer to take him for a ride.  If he did, he might have a different opinion of the Audi R8.  Maybe one of his players should call me and I’ll get them one.” At which point, it was my turn to hit the ball and to make matters worse, I followed it up with a less than cool shot off the tee box.  It was memorable though, which is why I decided to bring it up in this article about the Bugatti Veyron.

Now, in fairness to Coach Karl, the absolute coolest car made is definitely the Bugatti Veyron, but I’ve never driven down the road and seen one pull up next to me since they are $1.7 million.  So, I couldn’t really say that was the coolest car to the coach of the Nuggets because nobody actually drives them, except on shows like Top Gear in the video I’m posting here.  Even though, it’s without a doubt the most incredible car ever built for the road!  Just watch the video and you’ll see why.

However, the photos of this Audi R8 were taken recently in Castle Pines where I was going in to see my client at his jewelry store about his Mini-Cooper I sold.  Across the street, sitting in the parking lot was this super cool Audi R8 and I walked over and snapped a couple photos to put up here at CoolCarGuy.com.  Yes, it’s an Audi.  Enjoy the videos.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaENG1vt6-Y[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO0PgyPWE3o[/youtube]

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John Boyd

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant with his license at a car dealership in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter @coolcarguy