Toyota Says It Found A Solution To The Wheels Coming Off Of Its Cars
Toyota discovered that the tires they ordered for the BZ4X were not up to specifications and were capable of coming off during travel.
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Toyota has figured out why the wheels kept falling off of the BZ4X, its first mainstream electric SUV. The company found that the wheels they ordered for the SUV weren’t produced according to their specifications, which resulted in a bad fit. The company had realized that the wheels could fall off of the SUV, even if driven only a couple of miles.
The situation could be extremely dangerous and deadly. If a wheel comes loose and falls off as someone is driving the vehicle, the driver could get into a serious accident. Toyota could have been responsible for the injury or death of hundreds of people.
Toyota took quick action, and just recently announced that they had successfully found the cause of the problem. Earlier this summer, customers were horrified as the automaker sent a warning out to those who owned the electric vehicle. They found a solution for it, which would later require customers to visit a Toyota dealership to get their vehicles fixed.
Toyota had contracted a supplier to produce the tires for the BZ4X, but the tiremaker failed to adhere to the tires’ specification guidelines set by the automaker. The poorly fitted tires were one reason why they came loose. The company also uncovered another reason for the wheels’ faulty performance: hub bolts.
According to CNN, the “hub bolts used to attach the wheel to the axle” presented another contributing factor to the dangerous problem. The hub bolts allowed the tires on the SUV to vibrate and come loose. As the vehicle was driven, the intense movement would lead to the vehicle’s tires coming completely off.
Fortunately, Toyota will fix the issue by placing new wheels and new bolts along with washers, which will reinforce the bolts’ grip. The new parts are being sent to every Toyota dealership where customers will be able to take their electric SUV and have the tires and bolts swapped out for free. The company is aiming to start replacing customers’ tires by November this year.
Toyota became aware of the issue not too long after the SUV went on sale. As a result, the problem didn’t affect a large number of customers, which is common when recalls occur. Only a total of 260 BZ4Xs had been sold and delivered to customers at the time of the recall, making it a relatively small percentage of Toyota buyers. Another vehicle, the Subaru Solterra, was “developed in collaboration with Toyota and is very similar to the BZ4X,” reported CNN, which placed it at risk for recall.
However, when the recall was announced, no Subaru Solterra deliveries had been made, sparing any customers from the scary situation. In order to appease its customers, Toyota offered to buy back the electric SUV from some customers back in August. Since customers aren’t able to drive their vehicles right now, the company is also offering those afflicted buyers another Toyota vehicle to use for free until they can get the wheel issue corrected.
In addition, Toyota offered $5000 to customers who had purchased the BZ4X SUV in an effort to set things right. Those customers had two options: they could either take the cash as a partial refund for what they paid, or they could apply the money towards their finance payments. Toyota will also extend the SUVs warranty “by the amount of time that the SUVs have been taken out of service,” reported CNN.
