Local car dealers gear up to fix recalled Toyotas

By Susan Harding KATU News and KATU.com Staff Published: Feb 1, 2010 at 7:12 PM PST
Local car dealers gear up to fix recalled Toyotas »Play Video

PORTLAND, Ore. - While Toyota is working to repair cars that are at risk of speeding out of control by shipping out repair parts to dealers, local car owners may need to be patient before their vehicles can be fixed.

KATU News contacted every Toyota dealer in the area to find out how long the wait will be to get customers’ cars fixed. Most dealers said they’d be ready to repair the sticky gas pedals within a couple of weeks and the repair could take anywhere from one hour to one day.

“We hope to get parts by the end of this week and start actually making repairs by the end of this week or early next week,” said Russ Humberston, general manager of Russ Toyota of Beaverton.

To prevent sudden acceleration, mechanics must add a steel bar to the pedal assembly to eliminate friction that can cause the pedal to stick. Humberston said it’s still unclear how long it will take to make the repair.

“We think it will be a fairly simple repair,” he said. “If we had to venture a guess right now, it would be an hour or two hours, but I’m a little afraid to say that because Toyota has not told us that specifically.”

He said within a couple of days his dealership plans to start taking appointments. And once the parts come in, Humberston said his dealership will work quickly to repair customers’ cars.

“We’ll do whatever it takes,” he said. “We’ve done extended hours in the past. So if we need to go 24/7, we will.”

Even if a customer’s Toyota is on the recall list, it may not need to be fixed, because it depends on where the gas pedal was manufactured.

Humberston said the best way customers can get to the top of the repair list and to find out if their cars need to be fixed is “probably a good old-fashioned phone call.”

He suggested that customers, before taking in a recalled car, call a dealership with their VIN numbers. They may find out their car doesn’t need repairs.

For a complete list of recalled vehicles and detailed answers to getting a vehicle fixed: