The gas pedal problem that directed to the recall of millions of cars of Toyota credited with the label of 'World's No. 1 automaker', has to face customer criticism as not enough has been done to cope up with the problem and this is affecting the sales bitterly. Over 4.5 million vehicles were recalled globally and the number being huge, it is a much serious problem than the previous quality problems.

Shinichi Sasaki, who oversees quality control at Toyota said, "This is unprecedented in having caused this huge problem for customers and it is too soon to put a number on the ultimate cost of the recall. Sales lost are already costing Toyota $155 million weekly and as estimated, the recalls are likely to cost about $900 million".

Jim Lentz, President of Toyota Motor Sales USA, told reporters, "This is embarrassing for us to have... this kind of recall situation. But it doesn't necessarily mean that we have lost our edge on quality. We have to redouble our efforts to make sure this doesn't happen again. The decision to stop selling the affected vehicles would hurt January sales, but the impact over the long term is unclear".

Toyota apologized to its customers on Monday and planed to restart production on models that suffered due to the recall by Feb. 8.