Lexus Es

Drivers behind the wheel of a Geo Tracker sport-utility vehicle or a Chevrolet Corvette are more likely to die in a crash than those driving a larger car such as a Volvo or Saab, an insurance group said. "There's a clear problem with small passenger vehicles as a group," said Brian O'Neill, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Data for 178 passenger vehicles for the years 1989-93 also show that air bags make a difference, he said.

Japanese automakers dominated an influential survey of the most reliable new vehicles that was released Thursday, but General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. also placed high with several models. Consumer Reports magazine named 47 vehicles to its list of the most reliable cars and trucks for model year 2007. Of those, 39 were from Japanese automakers, including an industry-leading 21 from Toyota Motor Corp. and 11 from Honda Motor Co.

Asian automakers once again dominate the upper ranks of Consumer Reports' annual vehicle-reliability survey, although Ford Motor Co. is making strides in improving the dependability of its cars and light trucks. Ford's sustained production of vehicles that are as dependable as -- or better than -- some of the industry's best models dispels the notion that only Japanese manufacturers make reliable cars, the consumer magazine reported Tuesday. The four-cylinder Ford Fusion and its cousin, the Mercury Milan, ranked higher in predicted reliability than any family sedan in the CR survey save the Toyota Prius.

Relatives of a California Highway Patrol officer and three family members who were killed in an August crash that touched off the recall of millions of Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles filed a lawsuit Tuesday that blames the carmaker for their deaths. Off-duty CHP Officer John Saylor, his wife, daughter and brother-in-law died Aug. 28 when their 2009 Lexus ES350 took off at full throttle, reaching an estimated 120 mph in rush-hour traffic in suburban San Diego, before crashing and killing all four on board.

Toyota Motor Corp. said it would recall 3.8 million vehicles sold in the United States as it attempts to resolve concerns that floor mats in those cars and trucks could cause their gas pedals to become stuck, leading to uncontrollable acceleration. The recall, affecting eight Toyota and Lexus brand models, will be the largest in the Japanese carmaker's history. The models include 2007-2010 Toyota Camrys and 2004-2009 Toyota Priuses. Last month, a San Diego man and three passengers were killed in a high-speed crash.

The sleek Infiniti G37 Cindy Marsh bought last August was the car of her dreams, equipped with the latest keyless electronics technology that allows her to start the engine with the touch of a button. But right away, the system gave her trouble. To get the engine started, she would sometimes have to tap the power button repeatedly. Sometimes it wouldn't start unless she opened and closed the car doors, Marsh recalled. She eventually adapted to the system's quirks but said that even now she isn't sure how to shut off the engine in an emergency.

Employees at Toyota dealerships witnessed and duplicated sudden acceleration in the company's vehicles several times in the last decade, yet the automaker did not report the findings to regulators, new allegations in a federal lawsuit charge. The claims, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, also allege that Toyota Motor Corp. bought back vehicles from owners who complained of sudden acceleration in exchange for confidentiality agreements barring them from discussing the matter.

Moving to correct what federal regulators have termed a "very dangerous problem," Toyota Motor Corp. said it would modify and replace gas pedals on 4.26 million cars and trucks to reduce the vehicles' risk of accelerating out of control. Toyota said the measures were designed to prevent floor mats from jamming the accelerator pedal open. As an additional precaution, the Japanese automaker said most of its cars would be modified so that the brake overrides the accelerator if both pedals are pressed at the same time.

Toyota Motor Corp. has run into another pedal-entrapment issue, this time with its Lexus sport utility vehicles. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it requested that Toyota, which owns the Lexus luxury brand, recall model year 2010 Lexus RX 350 and RX 450 H vehicles "for a serious safety issue involving potential pedal entrapment by the floor mat. " If the mat traps the gas pedal, the vehicle could speed out of control....

Toyota Motor Corp. plans a more aggressive rollout of a system that cuts power to the engine when the brake and gas pedals in a vehicle are pressed at the same time. The system is meant to be an extra safeguard against the type of sudden-acceleration problems that have prompted the company to recall millions of vehicles worldwide. The brake override system will be built into most new Toyota models sold in the United States by the end of 2010, the company said. The announcement came as James Lentz, president of Toyota's U.S. operations, apologized to consumers for the automaker's safety and reliability problems at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's investigative subcommittee Tuesday.