Toyota dealers rushing to fix recalled part

The dealership received its first shipment of repair parts Wednesday morning, and there's a hefty list of anxious owners to get to.

Mechanics are yanking off gas pedals, and slipping in a small piece of metal.

That metal, called a "shim," is smaller than a quarter, and the company says it's the right fix to prevent the pedal from sticking or jamming, which might cause the vehicle to suddenly accelerate.

Because of the recall, sales of most new Toyota cars and trucks has stopped for the past week. That will soon change.

"As soon as the vehicles are fixed, we can start selling them," said Melissa Miller of Toyota of Seattle. "At Toyota of Seattle, our main focus is fixing the vehicles on the road currently."

That means at this dealership, customer vehicles get first priority, with new shipments of the repair parts coming in everyday.

At Rodland Toyota in Everett, repair appointments start next week. But it's unclear just how many owners will take the time to bring in their vehicles.

"On the gas pedals sticking, we have not seen any issues, and we have not heard of any other dealership that's experienced any other issues throughout our five-state region," said service manager Bob Gardner.

New confusion about the recall can be frustrating. The nation's transportation secretary addressed lawmakers on the issue on Tuesday.

"My advice is, if anyone owns one of these vehicles, stop driving it," said Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. "Take it to the Toyota dealer because they believe they have the fix for it."

He quickly back-pedaled, but not before Toyota's stock plummeted.

Now there's another problem for the company, this time involving its Prius hybrid cars and possible malfunctioning brakes.

Toyota says it has already completed an investigation of electronic systems and found nothing wrong.