Air Bag On-off Switch problems of the 2005 Toyota Tundra

Their has not been an incident yet, I am just trying to avoid a bad situation, but not getting any help from Toyota's end. I have brought in my Tundra multiple times to get the airbags checked out and they always said their was no problem. Then now I receive a recall letter in the mail and immediately call and setup an appointment because I am fixing to leave town for a new job. We set one up for July 30th and then a few days later I get a call and they cancelled the appointment because they don't have the airbag parts. I leave town this weekend, the 1st, in the Tundra with the recall and will be driving around texas doing commercial construction work. I am trying to work with the dealership to get things done but the manager, jeff, just pretty much said ol well we can't do anything for you. He never offered a rental or any other alternative to them not having the parts. I got a call from megan at the corpus dealership and she has been more than helpful trying to figure out a solution or some alternative so I am not driving around in a deathtrap for the next 6 months. Your rental policy won't work very well considering I work 6-7 days a week and won't be near a dealership so I might not be able to just leave my new job to come switch vehicles with you. The inconvenience should be on the dealership/manufacturer, not the individual who paid for the vehicle. I hope to see some better customer service from Toyota, but I guess if something happens while I have to drive the Tundra around. I will just join the lawsuit.

Recall states serious injury of death may occur if air bag deploys. This seriously limits the utility of the vehicle since no one can ride in the front passenger seat - limiting the passengers to four. Toyota has made no effort to mitigate this problem - an unknown replacement date is not a good faith effort. Toyota needs to turn off the passenger air bags in the affected vehicles. Two door trucks have switches to turn off the air bag when children are in the passenger seat. Why not simply disconnect the switch so that the air bag will not deploy. To not do so, does not make sense. I know that if involved in a crash, air bags can save lives - except in this case when they will do more harm than good. Toyota has absolved itself of liability by providing notification - but 5 months without taking any kind of action to mitigate the problem is excessive. It is time to remedy the problem or I would suggest that you tell Toyota they need to provide me with a new truck - that would probably get their attention. (is there any other agency I can contact to register a complaint?).

- the contact called regarding a recall for a safety seat. The recall stated the one should manually turn off the air bags if the child sat in the front passenger seat. Because this vehicle did not have a manual switch the contact stated the recall should state if one did not have a switch then he should have an on -off airbag switch installed. Updated 03/30/07.