2022 Toyota Venza Hybrid

The contact's companion leased a 2022 Toyota Venza Hybrid. The contact stated that the vehicle had experienced unintended acceleration on several occasions. The contact stated that while in a drive-thru and slightly depressing the brake pedal, the vehicle suddenly accelerated unintendedly and crashed into a pole. There were no warning lights illuminated. The air bags did not deploy. The contact did not sustain any injuries. The contact's companion, who was occupying the front passenger's side seat sustained a broken sternum and eleven broken ribs and was hospitalized for four days. There was no reported fire. A police report was filed. The vehicle was towed to a tow lot. The vehicle was then towed to Mike's Auto Repair. The local dealer was not contacted. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not contacted. The failure mileage was approximately 14,000.

I am the primary driver of our 2022 Toyota Venza. On [XXX] I had just taken the car through the Splash automated car wash on [XXX] and I was navigating into an adjacent space for use of the vacuum cleaners. As I took my foot off the accelerator to put the vehicle into Park, it suddenly and unintentionally accelerated. It crossed the driveway entrance to the car wash, jumped a curb which was actually the top of retaining wall for the parking lot of the adjacent business, and sailed over the retaining wall into the parking lot which was over 2 feet lower than the level of the car wash. I was able to bring the car to a stop without hitting anything, but 3 tires were blown out and severe damage occurred to the underside and front end of the car (we are awaiting estimates of the damage to the car). The airbags did not deploy. I had a minor shoulder bruise from the seat belt but no other injury. The car is at an auto repair shop awaitinng estimates and adjuster inspection. No report has yet been filed with Toyota but we expect to file today. No independent service center or other inspection has been done yet. There was no warning system notification prior to the incident. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)

Three times now over the past 4 months, including an incident yesterday, when I try to accelerate from a stop, the car just rolls forward slowly as if in neutral, but there is zero acceleration power for about 5 seconds, and then it engages and accelerates like normal. There are no warning lights, no codes, no nothing at all, including acceleration power. The car acts as if everything is fine, but it doesn't accelerate at all for several seconds. Every time that this has happened has been when I was pulling out into traffic on a very busy road. I am about to call the dealership about this issue, but since there are no warning lights activated, there won't be any codes that will show up, and they won't be able to diagnose the problem. When I searched online, "Toyota Venza won't accelerate", there are at least a half dozen people in forums that I've found that have experienced the exact same issue, which hasn't been resolved because the car doesn't register any issues, so the dealership can't find any system codes indicating that there is a problem. I am incredibly concerned about this because the entrance to my neighborhood is on a steep incline, and I usually have to quickly accelerate onto the main road, which is very busy and has a blind curve on the left hand side. Random failure to accelerate is incredibly dangerous already, but at least twice a day every day I have to pull out of my neighborhood. I am very concerned that one of these acceleration failures will end up getting me or one of my family members seriously harmed or killed if this isn't addressed soon. Venzas are lesser known models, so there are limited numbers of them on the road, but this issue is a serious safety hazard that is going to get someone killed if not addressed, it's only a matter of time.

There is an acceleration issue that only happens sporadically. From a stopped position (stop sign/stop light) when I let go of the break and start acceleration with the gas pedal, it doesn't work. Even if I press down more in the gas pedal, it merely creeps- as if it were in neutral. It happens with turns or going straight. I have no clue what could be causing it. The breaks still work, and the gas pedal starts working again after about approx 10 or 15 ft of rolling. When the gas begins working again its a smooth engagement- no jarring or revving. And it only happens sporadically, maybe 8 times since I bought it in 2022. I have had it looked over at the dealership twice and they found nothing and are not willing to fix this issue- as they say there isn't one. I worry greatly that this will result in a crash.

On multiple occasions, my 2022 Venza does not accelerate when hitting the gas pedal after coming to a complete stop. I can press the pedal all the way to the ground but it is delayed by 3-5 seconds and just idles slowly into the intersection. This is happening when turning onto streets where you need to accelerate quickly to avoid oncoming traffic on left turns, and to not get rear ended when making right turns. No dash lights come on, the safety system is not engaged, no warning lights. The Venza is less than a year old and has 7k miles. I’ve seen several threads online of this exact issue happening on other 2021+ Venzas. The local Toyota dealer will not inspect without a $175 fee even though it passed the last safety check fully, is under warranty and I’ve provided exact date/time stamps of when this occurs and have dash cam footage showing the conditions and delay in acceleration. Corporate Toyota is unresponsive to emails and calls as well. This is extremely dangerous and is going to cause an accident.