Fixes start on Toyotas By Jerry Kronenberg/ BostonHerald.com Thursday, February 4, 2010 Celia Barrasso rushed her new Corolla back to the dealer for work after America’s top car cop briefly seemed to declare millions of recalled Toyotas unsafe to drive.       “I heard on TV: ‘Don’t drive your car until it’s repaired,’ and that’s why I came in,” Barrasso, apparently the first Massachusetts driver to get a recalled Toyota fixed, said yesterday as Norwood’s Boch Toyota worked on her car.       U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood touched off a firestorm of publicity yesterday when he appeared to say some 5 million Toyotas under recall weren’t safe to drive until repaired.       “My advice, if anybody owns one of these vehicles, is to stop driving it and take it to a Toyota dealer, because they believe they have the fix for it,” LaHood told a congressional hearing.       TV and radio newscasts led with the remark, which appeared to refute Toyota’s claim that the recalled cars are safe to drive unless their gas pedals start acting up. Toyota’s stock even briefly fell 8 percent on the news.       LaHood later said he made a “misstatement” and seemed to OK continued use of recalled cars, but the incident only added to Toyota’s woes.       The auto giant has recalled millions of Camrys, Corollas and other popular models in recent weeks amid reports of cars uncontrollably accelerating in rare cases. Toyota blames the problem on worn accelerator parts or gas pedals that can get stuck in floor mats.       Japanese officials yesterday expanded the problem’s scope by disclosing possible brake and gas-pedal woes in some 2010 Toyota Priuses sold in Japan.       Also yesterday:       LaHood said Uncle Sam is probing Toyota’s electronic-throttle systems, which some critics claim really cause the problem.       Goldman Sachs downgraded Toyota stock from “buy” to “neutral.”       On the bright side, Toyota has begun sending dealers parts to fix recalled cars. The automaker is paying for all repairs and also giving dealers up to $75,000 for extended hours and other extra efforts.       Boch Toyota, New England’s top-selling dealership, got its first 500 repair kits yesterday.       Owner Ernie Boch Jr. said consumers shouldn’t bring in vehicles until Toyota sends out recall notices, but added that “if someone is really freaking out, they can stop by and we’ll check their car out.”