Lexus defect petition DP15007
Low-speed surging. NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation opened this defect petition about the vehicle speed control on 1 model year (2010). Opened Oct 19, 2015, closed Feb 25, 2016 after 4 months without a recall. closed
What NHTSA says
Source: Office of Defects Investigation, as filedIn a letter dated September 15, 2015, a consumer submitted a petition to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) alleging that software defects caused an accident experienced by his wife in their model year 2010 Lexus HS250H vehicle as she was attempting to park the vehicle. The petition requests that NHTSA have Toyota correct software defects in their electronic throttle control software and then issue a national recall of all effected [sic] vehicles and have Toyota replace the old faulty code with the new safer code. NHTSA has reviewed the material cited by the petitioner. The results of this review and our evaluation of the petition are set forth in the DP15-007 Petition Analysis Report, published in its entirety in the Federal Register and included in the repository for this investigation, available at www.safercar.gov. The Agency performed a thorough technical review of the concerns raised in the petition. The petitioner believes that the information from the Event Data Recorder (EDR), which records certain pieces of information for five seconds prior to a crash, shows that for the last 0.8 seconds prior to hitting the brick building the accelerator pedal was wide open at 100% at the same time the brake pedal was being depressed. Our analysis of data recovered from the EDR and from the engine management Hybrid Control Unit (HCU), together with vehicle inspection information contained in the petition, indicate that:1) Sometime during the last 0.512 seconds of the event time frame the accelerator pedal was fully applied; 2) At the airbag trigger point (EDR t = 0s) immediately following the vehicle's impact with the building, the stop lamp switch status was ON, indicating that the brake had been applied at least enough to illuminate the brake lights; 3) At no time during the event were the brake and the accelerator pedals depressed simultaneously (based on information from the HCU); and 4) The braking system on the vehicle was fully functional and was capable of stopping a vehicle at full throttle if meaningfully applied in sufficient time. After a thorough assessment of the material submitted by the petitioner, the information already in NHTSA's possession, and the potential risks to safety implicated by the petitioner's allegations, it is unlikely that an order concerning the notification and remedy of a safety-related defect would result from any proceeding initiated bygranting the petition. After full consideration of the potential for finding a safety related defect in the vehicle, and in view of NHTSA's enforcement priorities and its previous investigations into this issue, the petition is denied.
A Defect Petition is a petition from a member of the public asking NHTSA to open a defect investigation; the agency grants or denies it and publishes the reasons. The summary is the agency’s own text from its investigation file, unedited; the opening and closing resumes with the full reasoning are on NHTSA’s site under this number.
What this means for an owner
Source: and what happens nextAn investigation is not a finding that a defect exists, and it puts no duty on anyone. NHTSA opens a Preliminary Evaluation when complaints and other reports suggest a condition worth asking the manufacturer about; it upgrades to an Engineering Analysis when the answers warrant testing; it closes either when it recommends a recall, when the manufacturer recalls on its own, or when no defect trend is found. The agency’s own goals are about four months for a petition, eight for a Preliminary Evaluation or a Recall Query and eighteen for an Engineering Analysis; many run longer.
This one closed without a recall. That means NHTSA found no defect trend it chose to act on at the time, or the manufacturer addressed the condition another way (a service campaign or a bulletin, which have their own pages). A closed file can be reopened if new reports arrive.
Model years it names
Source: as NHTSA filed themAlso named: 2010 Lexus HS 250 Hybrid.
A vehicle page’s investigation list carries the same action; a name here is the scope NHTSA opened, not a list of affected VINs.
Common questions
Source: NHTSA Office of Defects InvestigationIs DP15007 a recall?
No. A defect petition is NHTSA asking questions, not a recall. A safety recall carries an NHTSA campaign number and a duty to repair for free; this one closed without one. Whether one particular vehicle has an open recall is a VIN question at nhtsa.gov/recalls.
Is DP15007 still open?
No. It closed on Feb 25, 2016 without a recall.
Which vehicles does DP15007 cover?
NHTSA opened it on 1 model year: 2010 Lexus HS 250 Hybrid. That is the scope of the inquiry, not a list of affected vehicles; a recall, if one follows, defines its own population by VIN.