Interesting Reading

[Bob Campbell]

The only union plant Toyota has (soon to be had) in the US is at Fremont, California. Please tell us how the unions are responsible for this mess at Toyota. It might be most interesting...

We were being facetious. We call that ironic humor, poking fun at the multitude of West Virginian's on here, whose lifestyles depend so heavily on unionized labor, yet hate those unions so much.

[AmpedNow]

At the essence of Toyota's immeidate problems, in my opinion:

http://autoperspectives.com/blog/2010/0 ... or-either/

Well worth the read...

Toyotas are like refrigerators?

Toyota’s reputation for bulletproof quality and reliability is a completely rational positioning. Combine that with bland design and you have automobiles that many in the industry deride as “appliances.” Consider your refrigerator. It sits there, does its job remarkably well, demands no attention at all…unless it breaks and then it’s a disaster. Sounds like a Toyota. As long as nothing goes wrong with your refrigerator, you will probably remain likely to purchase the same brand again, if you have problems you will defect to another brand. Ultimately, this is how Toyota will measure the strength of its brand…how many customers defect.

Toyota has never been a brand that people connected to in an emotional way. Toyota customers aren’t passionate about the brand, they have always been rational about purchasing Toyota quality and reliability. When quality is lacking and reliability questionable, there is nothing left, there is no overriding reason to stay with Toyota.

I can't say I disagree with these statements, generally...

Except I would argue that a rational position can become a emotional position over time and exposure.

As I have said many times, My reason for choosing Toyota is based on the tens of hundreds I have been around, seen them take a beating and still keep on going... 200, 250, 300, 350k. So far, the only mechanical repair costs for my 03 Corolla with 122k has been $300. Of course, that could change anytime, but so far, Toyota has been good to me.

Contrast that to the GM junk I've had that nickel and dimed us to death. (Except for the Olds Ciera. That was a good car.) I felt kinda burned, driving and defending "American made" cars and having problems with them while my friends driving Toyota and Honda never seemed to have any problems. Same with our work fleet of Toyotas. I could no longer ignore the facts right in front of me: Japan won this war.

However, I have never ruled out defecting to another brand. But I find myself somewhat in the same position with Toyota as I was a few years ago with GM. This is a very serious recall, but does a few hundred defective vehicles out of millions negate the entire brand to junk status? Anyone being objective at this point in time would have to say no. There are many, many more good Toyotas on the road than defective ones.

Therefore, I see no reason to "change teams" at this point. However, the fallout has just begun. We'll see what happens.

[cgarison]

One item of note, you are comparing Corolla quality to that of the entire brand lineup. That may work more today than in the past, but it is hard to compare overall reliability of a brand that makes as broad of a base of cars as Toyota by just looking at a personal experience with a model.

Last summer, Amy and I test drove Camrys to see if she wanted to trade her Rav4 for something more car like. The experience was an eye opening one for me as we tested a base four cylinder and than a loaded V6 model. Even though both of these cars said Camry on the trunk and had the same sheetmetal, the structure and components in these cars were as different as night and day. The V6 model did not have a rear seat that folded down to form a pass through from the trunk because the structure of the unibody had to be reinforced to handle the stress of the bigger motor and additional forces it created in the car when turning around a corner. The controls inside the car were as dramatic in difference as well with V6 having nice touch controls while the 4 cylinder had traditional knobs, cranks and buttons that clicked.

Yes, I know there is $10,000 difference in the cars, but still, the Camry V6 had much more to go wrong than the base 4 cylinder. As currently, Toyota might be the only company to have that much difference between two models of the same car with the same sheet metal. Chrysler and GM do the same through brand engineering, but most people do not compare Cadillac quality to that of Chevrolet.

Toyota has done a good job at making appliances. Now all their appliances can kill their owners which means that appliance purchasers are going to look elsewhere for a appliance like-car.

[The Interpreter]

A man who attempted to return his recalled Toyota pickup truck to All Star Toyota on Airline Highway on Saturday crashed into the dealership building when his allegedly faulty accelerator stuck, the Baton Rouge Police Department reported....

http://www.sgvtribune.com/opinions/ci_14348069

[AmpedNow]

Toyota has done a good job at making appliances. Now all their appliances can kill their owners which means that appliance purchasers are going to look elsewhere for a appliance like-car.

My year is not on the recall list. So, I'm really not worried about anything. With the age and mileage, any defects would have become apparent by now. Any breakdowns now would be a result of natural wear and tear.

Other cars that interest me are the Civic and the new Mazda 3. I'm also waiting to check out the Ford Fiesta next year.

Some of you guys seem all too eager for Toyota to go under... Don't forget that like GM, their failure would impact the national economy by putting tens of thousands out of work, including the thousand or so West Virginians employed at the Buffalo motor plant. But, I guess all those scab jobs don't count for anything.

Maybe GM will take over that plant and directly employ West Virginians with some "real" union jobs.

[weaver]

Maybe GM will take over that plant and directly employ West Virginians with some "real" union jobs.

Yeah, people are just lining up to buy a Gubmint Motors car!

[AmpedNow]

Toyota owning up to its mistakes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZoBfpm1zHg

Keep the article about Toyota owners likely abandoning the company in droves in mind, and read some of the comments made by them on the page.

Again, this is not a long-term problem for them if they fix these cars fast.

Even so, they're not going anywhere anyway because they are "too big to fail", too.

[The Interpreter]

Growing Doubts Toyota or NHTSA has identified sudden acceleration cause:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8507215.stm

Toyota Investigators in Congress Closely Related to Company, especially one John D. Rockefeller IV:

http://www.autoextremist.com/

[AmpedNow]

As if GM and Chrysler don't have friends in high places. The president of this country is effectively the CEO of both companies.

Left to free market forces, neither company should exist. At least in their current form.

Let's act like neither company has ever had any recalls, as well.

I don't know what the hell you guys want them to do... Should we just run them out of the country, along with all the other imports?

I may never drive a Toyota again, depending on how they handle this mess... But I sure as hell won't be driving "American" anytime soon. There are plenty of other better options out there.

[The Interpreter]

Georgetown Feels Toyota's Pain:

http://detnews.com/article/20100210/AUT ... ota-s-pain

[The Interpreter]

Very insightful article:

..."Toyota managers did not respond to the early signals. That's when they should have identified the root causes," said Sharma, who teaches Toyota production methods to businesses. "If the Toyota brand no longer stands for quality, what does it stand for?"

Since October, Toyota has recalled 8.5 million vehicles around the world for accelerator, braking and floor-mat problems in the biggest recall in its seven-decade history.

The gas pedal and floor-mat defects were design errors in supplier parts, and the faulty braking in hybrid models was caused by a software glitch.

They weren't manufacturing errors, the kinds of defects workers at plants have been trained to pick out — a piece that doesn't fit, a crack in a part, something that diverges from the design.

"As far as we know, Toyota is still the best manufacturing company in the world when it comes to production management," Michael A. Cusumano, professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, said in telephone interview from London. "Workers have nothing to do with this."...

This deserves a full read.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... QD9DRSP300

[The Interpreter]

An astounding read, with references to others long before this became known on a widespread basis:

...But on November 24, 2008, Donohue was behind the wheel when her car crashed into CityGrille, the restaurant at 321 East Colfax Avenue. The car was a Toyoto Rav4.

So far, the 2008 Rav4 isn't part of the massive Toyota recalls, but as reports of problems with many models keep coming out, Donohue told her story to Al Lewis, the former Denver Post columnist who now writes for the Dow Jones Newswires.

Donohue had a perfect driving record the day she was cruising along Colfax, just blocks from the Denver City & County Building where she'd worked for so long, when the gas pedal slammed down, sending her careening into other cars and then the restaurant storefront. "I would challenge any automobile engineer to tell me how a 69-year-old woman with a perfect driving record manages to keep her foot on the accelerator after hitting the first car, then a second car, then a light pole, and then crashing into a building," she told Lewis, who'd earlier suggested that drivers of faulty Toyotas just needed to turn off the car.

But as driver after driver who discovered their Toyotas suddenly accelerating have said -- and as Westword documented in this April 2009 feature -- there's simply no way to stop these cars. Short of a crash.

Donohue, who got an eight-point ticket for "careless driving" (later reduced to three points by a judge), sent a complaint to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in early 2009. The agency wrote back that it hadn't found a defect in the Rav4 "with regard to sudden, unwanted acceleration."...

http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/20 ... h_cour.php

[The Interpreter]

From Canada, a balanced view at where things stand, in my opinion:

http://www.thestar.com/business/article ... oyota?bn=1

Well worth the read...

[AmpedNow]

From Canada, a balanced view at where things stand, in my opinion:

http://www.thestar.com/business/article ... oyota?bn=1

Well worth the read...

Agreed. Great article.

I've never said that Toyota was without blame, and they are a Johnny-come-lately on owning up to their quality control mistakes.

However...

The non-stop bad news about Toyota was bound to yield a backlash. Toyota arguably has gotten more things right in its history than almost any major industrial enterprise. That being the case, Toyota apologists have emerged to suggest the former “Teflon Toyota” is a victim of opportunistic politicians, a sensationalist press, and ambulance-chasing litigators.

When the transportation secretary tells everyone to "stop driving their Toyotas and call their dealer", is it any question whose side this administration is on? That was an outrageous statement, and Toyota should have demanded a full retraction from that douchebag himself.

When the company is reviled by the UAW and unions everywhere, is it any wonder they took the opportunity to pounce and take cheap shots at Toyota's 170,000 American employees, implying that they are lazy, improperly trained, and make junk? (Talk about projecting...)

When their biggest U.S. competitor is being propped up by the federal government because they are supposedly "too big to fail", meaning that no matter how hard Toyota tries by capitalist means to beat them, they can't...is it any wonder Toyota considers this administration "a challenge"? Talk about an unfair playing field...

But, hey, at least it's fun to watch the conservative GM purists squirm with conflict these days.

[Bob Campbell]

Conveniently forgetting years of Japanese government support for all its car makers huh?