Toyota owners not all racing in for recall work

For a skeleton crew of auto mechanics at Sandy Springs Toyota, it was a bit like throwing a party to which no one came.

There they were in the Roswell Road dealership's spanking clean and brightly lit service department late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, waiting for an expected rush of Toyota owners eager to have their vehicles repaired under the automaker's massive safety recall program.

Eager enough, and time-challenged enough, perhaps, that they'd leave their cars overnight, or drop by at 9 o'clock, midnight, even 4 in the morning, to get the job done. That's why the dealership's service operation has been open 24 hours a day this week.

So how many vehicles were brought in after hours Tuesday?

"I think we did two," general manager Barry Jackson said.

Recall repair volume has been much higher during the daytime -- "a steady flow," Jackson said.

But since parts arrived and work began late last week, there has not exactly been a surge among local Toyota owners to fix accelerators that could stick in the depressed position, unintentionally, causing them to speed ahead. A recall of 4.45 million vehicles was announced last month.

"We geared up to be slammed," Jackson said. "So far, it's been nowhere near what we thought it would be."

Keith Mitchell, service manager at Marietta Toyota, which has maintained normal service hours, said the dealership's done about 30 recall repair jobs a day. He said that the dealership may go to overnight service if needed.

Asked why Toyota owners haven't swarmed service departments, Mitchell said, "There's no sense of urgency. They're like, ‘I'll do it with the next oil change.'"

That's what Pat Cohen of Sandy Springs did. She stopped into Sandy Springs Toyota last Thursday around 4 p.m. after work. She went in to get an oil change on her 2006 Avalon and a service department employee suggested she get the accelerator repair job done at the same time.

Cohen said she was fully aware of the recall but wouldn't have gone in to get the work done that soon if she wasn't already getting the oil changed.