Toyota Advises Owners to Remove Their Floor Mats

floormats in my WRX did the same thing despite all my attempts to secure it, so I removed them. its a poor design.

The OEM floor mats in all the cars my family drive usually have aggressive pins that prevent the floor mat from moving even if there are no hooks. I've had aftermarket ones that move a little bit but usually under the gas pedal.

Had this happen on my 2007 Camry. I "floored" the car getting on the highway and the bottom of the accelerator got stuck in the groove of the $120 factory all weather mat. I almost #$I% my pants and had to reach down to pull it out. I had the V6 and that car was fast.. didn't take long to hit 90MPH before I freed it and hit the brakes. It was, however, my fault because I didn't have the mats snapped in properly... but even with an error on my part, the pedal should not be designed with such a low clearance to the floorboard. I got a recall notice from Toyota in 2008 about replacing the all weather mats for free. Sad to hear about the family that was killed in the dealer loaner.

The floor mats in my WRX have never led to unintended acceleration. Maybe the blobeyes have better hooks than the bugeyes?

This is a sad thing for the family that lost in that accident but damn... It seems like an excessive amount of responsibility taken by the manufacturer.

subytrojan: it wouldn't surprise me... subaru keeps fixing problems secretly as they go. i've noticed a bunch of parts changing on me... same part number and all, but the part is significantly different.

Subaru did it on the WRX manual transmission, widening the gears after they had breakage issues the first year or so they sold them here and not disclosing the change.

I've had floor mat problems on my 2005 tacoma (it's on the list) but i've never had it stay floored, my floor mat does keep coming loose and moving around, however the only problem i have from it is not being able to floor the gas, so i can only give it 90% throttle till i move the mat, at worst i have had it do this with my brake but i could still apply 90% brake so it was not that big of a deal.

then again my truck did come with a fail safe for this problem, it's called a clutch, so if it would happen to stay floored i can stop that driving out of control B.S.

everyone thinks toyota's are boring, this just adds excitment to driving, and it's toyota's way of trying to kill lazy automatic drivers so more people will buy manuals, keep up the good work toyota!

"This is a sad thing for the family that lost in that accident but damn... It seems like an excessive amount of responsibility taken by the manufacturer."

That's what I thought at first, but after reading the comments, if the gas pedal does go so low as to get easily stuck in the mat, then that is a design problem. If the floor mats can come unfastened easily, then the pedal must have extra clearance to avoid a mat in an incorrect position. Either that or they must make the mats more secure.

Ya like a Gillette, eventually these things need to come with 5 hooks. And add an extra hook each year.
2 hooks is so passe.

They should use the system Audi uses.

http://memimage.cardomain.com/ride_images/3/3488/1661/33718330004_large.jpg

Extremely effective, and stay's in place 100% of the time.

I had a similar problem with a third party mat. When extremely cold, the mat became stiff, holding it's shape. Because it couldn't be hooked, it could slide backward while stiffly curved up in the front, where the gas pedal could catch it.

Happened twice before I figured it out. Thankfully, it was a stick so I could push in the clutch and turn the ignition off. I ran out and got a mat that could be hooked. Problem solved.

It sounds like these Toyota mats are only a problem if they're not clipped properly. My solution would be to clip them properly, but what do I know.

This is gonna be one big ass recall. I can see the toyota execs in tears. I don't think anything is going right for toyota this last two years. They still make a lot of money, but i think their competitiveness has taken quite a bit of jabs.

Had this happen in a Turbo 300ZX one time....I gassed it and it stayed gas. Thankfully I had space enough in front of me to realize, reach down and pull the mat back before rear-ending someone. It was not a good feeling when it was happening.

Why is it so hard for companies to design good floormats? The clips in my VW will never ever EVER let my floormats slide, nevermind even move an inch! For what it's worth, I've seen worse designs than these Toyota ones too.

@huyracing
I've also noticed how Subaru "secretly" changes things too. In my 06 B9 Tribeca the floor mat would sometimes get under the gas pedal but never got the pedal stuck down. In my 09 Tribeca the mat is cut so it doesn't extend under the gas pedal at all. At least Subaru changes things quickly (08 WRX to 09 WRX)and doesn't wait for something like this to happen and recall over 3 million cars.

My '06 Scion xA has the same catch/fastener for the front floormats. Anyone know why Scions apparently weren't included in the advisory/recall?