It is with great distress that we, Badrinath Padmanabhan and Arya Satyanarayana, bring to your attention of the grave danger that Toyota India had put our parents.
Both of us, who reside in the US and own Toyota vehicles, were glad and comforted that our father had decided to buy a Toyota Etios for himself in 2011. (Car registration number KL22C6127)

But seldom did we know that the brand we have known as a symbol of quality and reliability could produce a potentially deadly vehicle, that endangered my parents' life on midnight of 06/03/2018 / early morning of 07/03/2018. That fateful night the car spontaneously caught on fire while in the car shed and soon turned into a blazing inferno, pumping toxic black smoke into the house and endangering the lives of my parents who were sleeping and unaware of this. We consider it a miracle that they somehow were awakened by crackling sounds from the fire and were able to escape death by such a narrow margin.

Once outside the house, they observed from safety that the fire had started somewhere in back/middle of the car, which is counter to intuition (as opposed to the front which has most electrical units). As the fire was in the back of the car they were scared to put the fire out immediately with water (from garden hose) fearing of a petrol tank explosion. By the time the fire was finally put out it had wreaked considerable damage to the house that we grew up in and where our aging parents (71 & 68) are still living. The fire has completely destroyed the walls, roof, windows, and a scooter. As the fire had started slowly spreading into the house through the window, it melted away electronic equipment include a large TV and other prized possessions. It has marred the insides of the house with black tar-like smoke stains. The house will be unlivable till the affected areas are checked for structure strength retention, pressure washed, and repainted. Also this incident had temporarily killed both power and phone services to the house for more than a week, putting their life in a stand still situation.

The Kerala state electricity board recently inspected the wiring in the house and have indicated the house wiring to be in a healthy state and that the fire could not have been caused due to any internal faults.

We estimate that the home property damage itself would be close to Rs.15,00,000. The emotional toll that our aging parents are going through is immeasurable and they have to be rightfully compensated. We appeal to Toyota India to be forthright and to do the right thing by conducting a fair evaluation of the damage and compensating our parents with a replacement car, scooter, cost of property repair, and reparations for their mental agony.

Sincerely,

Badrinath & Arya