Moving Forward

Today I had a very interesting experience at the Toyota dealership. As part of their plan to gain customers after the recall of several of their cars due to gas pedals sticking, Toyota offered two years or twenty-five thousand miles of free maintenance. With the amount of driving I do, I thought it would be a great idea to take advantage of this. I scheduled my appointment for an oil change and took my computer to work (they offer free Wi-Fi and a lovely lounge).

I settled in and got to work. About an hour into the service (side note: I can't wait to pay Jiffy Lube to change my oil... instead of 2 hours like today, I will be done in 15 minutes) my service advisor comes out to inform me that there's been a recall on my Rav4. As it turns out, there's potential for my floor mat to slide up and make my accelerator stick.

Service advisor: "I just like to show my customers any pending recalls that might be out there. Your car has one on the gas pedal as it might become wedged under the floor mat. We don't have the tools/parts to fix it today, but you'll get a letter in the mail sometime soon to come back."

Me: "Wow, that sounds serious. I drive eighty miles every day - is it safe to be driving my car?"

Service advisor: "Absolutely. I would never let you leave here if it was an issue."

Ok, I'm not entirely sure how that works... apparently it's serious enough to spark a recall but not serious enough to drive for another couple months? I'm operating on the premise that they wouldn't knowingly let me drive a car around after a recall if there was any chance it could kill me... they don't want that lawsuit, right?

As the Toyota motto says... "moving forward"... apparently there's a chance I will be doing that even if I don't want to!