U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood took it on the chin yesterday and was forced to clarify a statement he made at a Congressional hearing where he said, "My advice, (to Toyota owners) is if anybody owns one of these vehicles, stop driving it.  And take it to a Toyota dealer."

Minutes later he was retracting the statement, but it was already too late.  The statement appeared in virtually every major newspaper in the United States and only served to create more unease and confusion among Toyota vehicle owners.  Mr. LaHood is reported to be a loose cannon when it comes to circumstances when cool heads should prevail and didn't let his reputation down yesterday.

Despite regrets and apologies for his trash talk, he later stated on the NHTSA (National Highway Transportation Safety Administration) web site that, " NHTSA will continue to hold Toyota’s feet to the fire to make sure that they are doing everything they have promised to make their vehicles safe."  Hmm, is holding someone's "feet to the fire" akin to waterboarding?

If one didn't know better, it would seem like now that the Obama administration is in the domestic auto business with its heavy stakes in General Motors and Chrysler Group, it is intent on doing whatever it can to "bad mouth" their toughest competitor, Toyota.  We hope this isn't the case as that strategy wouldn't serve anyone with safer cars or a more prosperous domestic industry.  The best we can hope for here is a government agency that works cooperatively to identify, solve and fix a problem on millions of vehicles driven by Americans. 

You can't ignore the fact, however, that Toyota Motor is digging its own hole here and it doesn't need Mr. LaHood's poorly chosen statements to further tarnish its image.  Word began leaking earlier this week that Toyota has been investigating computer-related braking problems on its hybrid vehicles, including the popular Prius and the Lexus HS250h.  Those rumors have been confirmed and while Toyota says it has not tried to "cover up" the problem, Toyota admitted yesterday that it has received 77 complaints through its dealers of a brake problem.  According to the company, "Depending on road conditions, Prius brakes were sometimes slow to respond when drivers kept lightly pressing them."  Apparently, this occurred as the car switched from regenerative braking to hydraulic braking, creating a time lag between the two braking systems that caused the vehicle to require a longer stopping distance. 

Toyota said it identified the problem being caused by electrical interference and in January rewrote the software program that manages the system and began installing the software on new cars being built at its assembly plants.  But the company hasn't figured out a way to install the new software on cars that are already on the road.

Woe is Toyota, for the last thing it needed on top of a global recall involving more than 8 million vehicles was a glitch in its famed hybrid products. 

Not unexpectedly, the NHTSA jumped right on top of this latest Toyota announcement with the following statement on its web site this morning: "NHTSA today announced it is opening a formal investigation of the Toyota Prius Hybrid model year 2010 to look into allegations of momentary loss of braking capability while traveling over an uneven road surface, pothole or bump. The agency received 124 reports from consumers, including four alleging that crashes occurred. Investigators have spoken with consumers and conducted pre-investigatory field work. 'Safety is our top priority,' said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. 'That is why in recent weeks NHTSA has also issued a consumer advisory on the recall of several models of Toyota vehicles and the Pontiac Vibe involving pedal entrapment and sticky accelerator pedals. We will continue to monitor these issues closely.'”

Interestingly, it sounds like the NHTSA has received more complaints about the Toyota hybrid brake problem than Toyota has, but the NHTSA hadn't said a word about it until after Toyota announced that it had a problem.  Certainly, it would appear that Toyota officials could have been more forthcoming about this latest problem with Toyota hybrid vehicles and they had a responsibility to warn owners as soon as they knew there was a problem.  But then again, so did the NHTSA.

The real losers in all of this are Toyota owners, even owners of vehicles that don't have problems or haven't been recalled, because of the loss in resale value of the car.  In time, that situation may improve, but for now, all of the Toyota vehicles involved in this recall are taboo as trade ins and will likely always carry a stigma as being part of the world's largest product recall.