No sooner did Toyota dealers start fixing the faulty accelerator pedals that have proved deadly in a number of accidents, but it emerged that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had received about 100 complaints about brake problems with the latest Toyota Prius gas-electric hybrid.

The blitz of bad publicity has humbled one of the world's largest and most admired corporations and it may take years to get out from under the cloud of distrust.

No doubt they will - just look at Audi, which had similar problems with unintended acceleration with its Audi 5000S in the 1980s, and Ford, which had problems with its Explorer SUV equipped with Firestone tires rolling over in the 1990s. Both companies are now on a roll.

Video: At Toyota in Warwick, the fix is in and it's not that hard


The parts arrived at the Warwick dealership Wednesday morning, and Balise Toyota service director Steve Guyette demonstrates -- in a minute and a half -- the fix his staff needs to perform on recalled Toyota vehicles. Providence Journal video and photo by Andrew Dickerman

Having issued the massive recall the week before - 2.3 million vehicles in North America, some 4.5 million worldwide - the company rolled out its top players and got to work to restore confidence.

Jim Lentz, the head of Toyota's North American sales, started Monday morning by appearing on "The Today Show" where he faced pointed questions from Matt Lauer.
Unfortunately he appeared to be half asleep and if he felt remorse over the deaths, he did not express it.

"This is embarrassing for us to have . . . this kind of recall situation,'' he told reporters later.'' But it doesn't necessarily mean that we have lost our edge on quality. But we do have to be vigilant. We have to redouble our efforts to make sure this doesn't happen again.''

I am old enough to remember the chairman of Johnson & Johnson's response when a lunatic spike Tylenol capsules with cyanide in 1982, resulting in seven deaths.
James Burke immediately took charge, ordered every Tylenol product off the shelves and conducted a massive public relations campaign to get the word out. It cost the company an estimated $100 million.

And when he broke down when talking about the deaths, he showed he cared about people and about Johnson & Johnson and thus restored faith in a company that had not been at fault to start with.

Toyota's cause was also not helped when Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood later told The Associated Press that the company was "a little safety deaf" and that federal safety officials needed to "wake them up" to the seriousness of the pedal problems.

Then later in the week, he confused everyone by first telling Toyota owners not to drive their cars, and then amending his statement to say he meant owners should get them fixed.

"What I meant to say or what I thought I said was, if you own one of these cars or if you're in doubt, take it to the dealer and they're going to fix it," he said.

And while Rhode Island-area dealers were planning on working round the clock to get the accelerator pedals fixed, they still had to contend with the fixes the company is planning for the carpeting and floor mats that have caused similar problems.

For the time being, owners are being told to take the floor mats out, but the company is planning on fixing the carpeting so that floor mats can again be put down safely.

Hopefully, Toyota has seen the worst of this crisis and can turn back to being what it built its reputation on, a first-class organization producing first-class products.

-- Peter C.T. Elsworth