plus 3, Toyota customers slow to respond - Star Community Newspapers

Toyota customers slow to respond - Star Community Newspapers
Snowstorm drops nearly 20 inches on region - Mercury
South Jersey slammed by second major snow blast - Courier-Post
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Toyota customers slow to respond - Star Community Newspapers

Posted: 07 Feb 2010 06:58 AM PST

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Toyota has been in the national spotlight recently after halting sales of eight models of cars and trucks that make up more than half its sales in the United States, cars that won't return to on-sale status until the sticking accelerator pedals manufactured by CTS Corp behind the recall are fixed. And while the recall has since gone global, it is also having an effect on local dealers such as Toyota of Plano.

The dealership had between 225 to 240 out of 370 cars in stock affected by the recall. They received the formal announcement of the recall at the same time as the public.

The announcement has had an effect on customer traffic into the dealership, said Mark Allen, director of new car sales at Toyota of Plano. He said the short term has been rough going so far. With customer traffic on the decline, Allen said that only makes a bad situation worse.

"There are people who produce these cars and people in the dealerships who sell, most with families to take care of," Allen said. "All are just trying to make it through the bad economy, when something like this hits."

Amid these concerns and without some of its top-selling models on the market, Toyota recorded a 16 percent drop in sales in January from a year ago. But Allen expects Toyota to recover.

Allen said Toyota will be fine because the product is a good product. The fact that they did not take any money during the mass bailouts of the auto industry is evidence of that, he said.

"Toyota will get back on track," Allen said. "What we are doing for our customers is communicating with them. We have not had a lot of negative comments from our customers. We have confidence in the product."

Toyota of Plano already has received the replacement parts and has begun installing them on vehicles brought to the dealership. They plan to replace the parts on all cars brought in by customers before they make the fix to their existing stock.

Allen said he and other members of the dealership physically inventoried the cars that have the accelerator arm in question. He said not only are the cars affected by the recall physically marked, they're also identified in their computer system and on the key machines. Allen said none of those cars will be used in test drives. The extra precautions were set up at Toyota of Plano, not something that was passed down by Toyota, he said.

"We have gone above and beyond in this regard," Allen said. "This is our policy here."

For Toyota owners who wish to take their cars in for the replacement part, he said it could take up to an hour to change out. But he said that depends on how many people they have who need the service at the time and how many customers come in with regular maintenance issues.

Toyota isn't the only carmaker currently recalling vehicles, as Honda announced last week it would recall a total of 646,000 units of the Fit/Jazz and City models globally, including 140,000 in the U.S. The recall is to fix a defective master switch which could cause water to enter the power window switch and in some cases cause a fire.

Recalls in the automotive world are fairly common practice. Allen said most don't get as much interest - some of those recalls are for issues far more dangerous than those faced by Toyota right now. This is why Toyota has fallen under such scrutiny as the international leading automaker has been criticized for their slowness to respond to the brewing crisis. Allen attributed that to the fact that Toyota has not faced a large issue like this before.

"It has been a misconception. Something the Toyota Corporation took too lightly in the beginning," Allen said. "But as concern grew, Toyota's stance became 'People think this is a problem, so we will fix it.'"

And now that they can fix it, Allen said they have not seen many come in for the repair. He said initially a few people were walking in and asking, "What is this?" As the week progressed, they had more people calling than coming in, he said.

"People need to know that we are not scared of making the repair," Allen said. "We are willing to sit down and listen; we understand that they have a family that goes in these cars and they need to feel safe.

The models affected by the recall include the 2009-2010 RAV4, 2009-2010 Corolla, 2009-2010 Matrix, 2005-2010 Avalon, Certain 2007-2010 Camry, 2010 Highlander (except hybrid models), 2007-2010 Tundra and 2008-2010 Sequoia. Toyota has also been ordered by the Japanese transportation ministry to investigate complaints that brakes on the latest generation of Prius respond sluggishly on bumpy or icy roads.

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Snowstorm drops nearly 20 inches on region - Mercury

Posted: 07 Feb 2010 08:02 AM PST

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By Brandie Kessler, bkessler@pottsmerc.com

A paralyzing snowstorm swept through the region Friday night into Saturday morning, dropping more than a foot of snow, as much as 18 inches, in many people's back yards, providing a lot of snow to shovel, plow and play with.

Even into the afternoon hours Saturday, many townships and boroughs throughout the area continued to see flurries.

With more than a foot of snow on area roads, work crews were out in full force attempting to clear the way for any brave motorists heading out and about on the eve of Super Bowl XLIV.

Ken Cusamano, of North Hanover Street, Pottstown, said the Super Bowl was one of the reasons he was digging his van out Saturday.

Having gotten started shoveling during the early morning Saturday, he had a good jump on things. Nonetheless, he was keeping watch outside his residence for any plow trucks that might drive back and box him back in.

Cusamano said the snow had him missing the warmer climate in his former home.

"I used to live in Florida," he said.

Denise Gephart, another North Hanover Street resident, also got an early start shoveling.

With three vehicles she needed to dig out, an early start was imperative, but it wasn't anything she hadn't seen before. "I'm from New Hampshire," she said.

Although many people were shoveling out their vehicles, not too many, especially no one without 4-wheel drive, was out on area roads.

Karla Castillo, Rolando Esposito, Jhoana Esposito and Karla Esposito, of Pottstown, decided to walk to the store to pick up milk, snacks and, of course, some rock salt to melt the snow.

Rolando Esposito said he was surprised to wake up Saturday morning and see all the snow.

"I was like 'Wow,'" he said. The weather forecasters "usually get it wrong. They usually say we're going to get a foot and then we only get a couple of inches."

The snow presented most people with several hours worth of shoveling. Among those working were Paul Byrne and Stephen Harrison.

"What do I think about it?" Byrne said of the snow. "It doesn't matter to me. It just means I have to do this (shoveling) and then drive in it Monday."

Jason Leh, of Pottstown, got some help shoveling from his sons, Breckin, 5, and Aidan, 8.

"They said 'Daddy can we help,'" Leh said, explaining he wasn't about to turn down their offer clearing away the 18 inches of snow that fell in Pottstown.

Residents in Exeter reported they had 15 inches of snow, while residents of Douglassville and Mount Penn reported snowfall of 19 and 14 inches, respectively.

One resident of Spring City estimated snow fall there at 13 or 14 inches.

Tom Maddingly, chief of Upper Pottsgrove Fire Company located on Farmington Avenue, and T.J. Wojton and Keith Winnemore, were among those who would have had a lot of shoveling to do.

Maddingly explained that the macadam in front of the garage doors need to be shoveled out so fire trucks, if they're needed, can respond to any incidents.

"We want to get trucks out if we have any calls," he said.

Maddingly and the other two men were relieved to see Mark Thompson of Thompson Automotive.

Thompson brought along a front end loader to help the shoveled down substantially, as within minutes he had cleared the way for the fire trucks.

Thompson said he didn't mind the weather.

"It's great for me, but not so much for everybody else," he said. "The roads are definitely slick."

A number of minor crashes and other traffic incidents were reported throughout the area.

But Joshua Beaujean, 14, Jonathan Beaujean, 12, and Xavier Campbell, 10, all of Pottstown, were definitely not concerned with road conditions. The three of them were among the handfuls of children out sledding.

They picked a hill out by Lincoln Elementary School.

"Many people think the top side (hill) is the best, but the lower side is the best," Campbell said.

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South Jersey slammed by second major snow blast - Courier-Post

Posted: 07 Feb 2010 06:58 AM PST

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(2 of 4)

Most of NJ Transit's buses in the southern part of the state were canceled. The agency said the routes would resume at 6 a.m. today, but passengers should expect some delays.

All but a few flights at Philadelphia International Airport were canceled on Saturday, according to the airport's Web site.

Saturday evening, Christie said most of the state's major roads were in "very good shape" thanks to the many hours put in by workers since the snow began Friday night. But he also urged residents to stay home so as not to impede the cleanup efforts, adding that many secondary roads remained slick and snow-covered.

Many South Jersey residents seemed to heed the many warnings as the snowy roads were largely desolate, save for snowplows, the occasional pedestrian and slow-moving cars.

State police spokesman Sgt. Julian Castellanos said the fact that the storm occurred on a Saturday probably helped keep many motorists indoors. The December storm also may have put more caution into motorists, he said.

Many events scheduled across the region for Saturday had been postponed in advance of the storm.

About 40 accidents were reported across the southern part of the state on Saturday, a figure Castellanos said wasn't unusual considering the conditions.

Police in boroughs in Camden, Burlington and Gloucester counties reported no major incidents.

The Delaware River Port Authority's four Philadelphia area bridges remained open Saturday evening, but with speed limits of 25 mph. And speed limits on the southern stretches of the New Jersey Turnpike remain lowered to 35 mph.

AAA Mid-Atlantic said it had handled more than 1,300 service calls by Saturday afternoon. Spokeswoman Tracy Noble said the majority of calls received by the auto club were request to pull out cars that had become stuck in the snow.

While the snowfall ended Saturday evening, Castellanos said drifting and frozen roads could still pose a hazard to drivers today.

State of emergency

While road crews worked around the clock throughout the tri-county area from the time the first flakes began to fall Friday evening until well after the snow ended Saturday afternoon, many roads, while passable, remained snow covered through the afternoon and evening. From fast food restaurants to strip mall stores to the malls at Cherry Hill, Moorestowns, Deptford and Voorheess, many of the businesses in the area were closed. All malls are scheduled to re-open at 11 a.m. today.

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Posted: 07 Feb 2010 06:44 AM PST

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Fable

Overall: I believe Fable is one of the best RPG games I have played to date. Great graphics, great storyline, it's a game that you shouldn't think twice about getting.

Gameplay: Being that Fable is an RPG game, I find the gameplay to be quite fun. I don't like tons of RPG games, but I believe this one is at the top of my list. At first I didn't know what to think, but I got hooked on the game. It's fun when you can chose to do as you please in the game. You take a quest and pick whether you want to be evil or a good person. There is quite to do in this game, and you'll realize it is quite addicting.

I think one of my favorite games I played that I thought was addicting was Zelda for N64. I thought when buying this that it would be 10x better, and I was right. There truely is so much you can do in this game. Get mad and kill everyone and steal anything in your path and everyone will be afraid of your. Or go about being a hero and everyone will seem to like you.

Some of the cool things you can do in this game is gain more powers, you can be a full out wizard, or be one of the strongest guys in this game, or heck do both. Other things you can do are owning buildings (taverns, shops, houses for example), or go and get married. Or going around giving good or bad expressions to people. There is so much more to this game, and that's why I think this game has reached the top to one of the best.

Graphics: I think the visual on this game is awesome. Get in battles and get cut. It's going to show where you got cut by showing scars. Get evil, you're growing horns, and losing hair. Get stronger, it's going to show more muscle. Eat all the time, you're going to become a big fatty. Stay in the sun for along time, it will show that you have.

Overall I think the graphics are great, the surrounding area looks great, and so does you're guy in the game.

Audio: I can't complain about the sound. Like some games you have to read what a person says when you go about the game. However in this it does have subtitles to read, although the people do talk in this game along with it. People get scared if you are evil in this game, sometimes will run and scream. Or they will go about clapping for you. There isn't much variety in the game for background music, but I think that's the only downside to the sound department. Although it may bother some that there isn't a ton of music, I don't have one thing to complain about it.

Suggestions: I just have a few suggestions for them.

One would be to never stop making these games, the first one had a great storyline. I hope to expect the same for the upcoming ones.

I guess this game would be more fun if you could do even more in this game. Here's some suggestions:

- If you tick someone off enough, whether you punch them a ton or whatever. I think it would be cool if you actually had enemies in the game that will come after you.

- Animals? Where's the dang horses to ride when I'm sick of running around? heh.

- More evil options. Burn down houses, set up traps, you know the good stuff!

Can't think of anything else at the time, but I look forward in the next Fable!

Overall Score: 9.0 / 10

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