Toyota troublers

The question is hard for me to answer but I chose "no". Not because Toyotas are worse than other cars but the company has become arrogant in success. It is dog eat dog business and Toyota ate very well for 30 years. Do I think Toyota hid recalls from the public? Yes. Did they manipulate the buyers and government? Yes. Do they need a shake-up? Yes. The more that this unfolds, the more I feel that Toyota did not handle this in a way that was best for the owners. The other car companies are all over this and will not let it get swept away even as they expose their own recalls. Or, is it because of the Toyota situation that they expose their own recalls?

Cheers Ron

I was pretty split on the question myself, which is why we included the option for "I'm not sure."

You make good points, and it's becoming more clear that there is indeed something that needed attention in the Toyota situation. On the other hand, the fear mongering from some portions of the media seemed a bit over the top at times.

Thanks for responding!

This reminds me of the 1980's when Fiat was a major player in the small car markets of America. Fiat fell victim to rusting and other quality issues like all cars of the time as effects of road salting and safety awareness became apparent. Fiat was not yet fully established here but relied on US dealerships even as the US manufacturers developed their own smaller cars. The more flexible Japanese manufacturers successfully responded to quality issues and protectionist government marketing roadblocks. Meanwhile a struggling Fiat was not about to be kicked around the US market any longer and left to sort out its European interests or maybe lick its wounds.
Don't expect the fear mongering to quiet down. Honda and the other Japanese competitors won't let it. The Koreans taste blood and the press sees a good story. Meanwhile Fiat is poised to try the American market again. May we all live in interesting times. Cheers Ron

I don't think it's A or B, there's a mix here. Obviously Toyota has some quality problems and, like most Japanese companies they won't publicly admit this until they have a solution ready to deploy. It's a face saving, more gentile method that's employed in the far east as compared to the in your face, confrontational approach we've evolved in the west.

Both systems work, the western approach may get a faster response but the take your time method may generate the best solution for the problem rather than a quick fix.

I think Toyota need to realize that they're playing in our yard now and need to do a much better job of meeting our expectations, if they want to keep their market share. The past is littered with dominant car companies that just couldn't adapt.

On the other hand, this kind of event brings out all the money grubbers and publicity hounds. Did anyone hear about the Prius in LA this morning that wouldn't slow down? The car supposedly was passing a slower car (what car is slower than a Prius?), and it kept accelerating to 90. The CHP had to help slow him down.

A couple of things are funny here, did the ignition switch stop working too? How about the tranny, can't you shift into neutral? Let the engine rev, worse case it breaks, If your Life and Limb are at risk from an impending high speed crash, let it go up in smoke.

NPR had some details on this, it seems the guy had taken the car to the Toyota dealership for the recall and was told his car wasn't one of the affected ones and refused (rightly so) to retrofit it.

Want to bet how many mainstream news shows have this on tonight and not give all the details?

Summary for anyone who's still reading. Toyota needs to change how they react to problems, just look at Audi in the 80's for a case study of what not to do. The media needs to present a fair and balanced set of facts (not much chance of that).

Don't let me get started on the Govt's (owner of Toyota's largest competition) protectionist witch hunt.

mike

Full disclosure-
Toyota Sienna, German, Korean, British and American cars owner

All I know is that I've never driven a vehicle with properly working brakes where the brakes couldn't overpower the throttle for at least one panic stop.

Politically, it's a witch hunt. After all, it had the right economic effect for a couple of automotive companies sales numbers, didn't it? In the end, I predict it'll become an Audi 2.0, and claims will once again dry up overnight, just like before.

I forgot to add, 'oh, how history does repeat itself'.

I think Toyotas throttle problems will eventually be exposed as electronic in nature. Fly by wire in $200 million limited production jets is tenuous. Drive by wire in cheap mass produced cars is ridiculous and completely unneccesary and dangerous. Please explain why throttle cables are a problem again ???

All cars these days have computer controller fuel injection, the gas pedal is just another input, like coolant temp, O2 sensor, traction control/ ABS readings, cruise control settings and the like, into the system. A cable operating a butterfly valve to control the air -fuel mixture just can't pass all the emission specs that cars need to meet these days.

The upsides are incredible power output/ CC of displacement, smooth power curve, easy starting when cold and much cleaner exhaust gas. The downside is, besides the current obvious Toyota (and others) software bugs, control of the car is being taken away from the driver little by little.

A double set of return springs on my SU carbs and any problems with unintended acceleration on my Triumph is fixed permanently.

mike

I don't think Toyota's problems are worse than other companies. For example, Ford knew about their rollover issues with the Bronco II way before the Explorer and kept a fund to pay off lawsuits instead of spending money to fix the problem. Why is this so different from that? A lot more people died in those situations.

Most companies don't want to broadcast the bad stuff before they have a fix, but I agree it could have been handled better. But no matter what they did or will do, the press will crucify them because it's always fun to pick on number one.

I recently had a chance to have a conversation with a German who worked in the car industry. They did a lot of the systems for European cars and are now required by law to have back up systems for everything that can control speed.

It seems in the first systems they also had a lot of trouble with getting unintended full throttle, and had a well publicized issue with a Renault I believe. It was on TV and doing max speed for an hour or two before it ran out of fuel. That led to new regs there.
Sure sounds like a similar problem to me.

Oh, and now that I work for a company that builds a lot of hardware that can control speed, it's always the software! When hardware fails there usually is simply a stoppage of something, when software has an issue, something different from intended is happening.

I very much think it's being blown out of proportion.

A double set of return springs on my SU carbs and any problems with unintended acceleration on my Triumph is fixed permanently. mike

I put double springs on my Tiger for an autocross day. Left them.

To the guy that thinks this is all blown out of proportion....

What part of people dying as a direct result of vehicle malfunction do you not understand ? The case of the California Highway Patrolman and his entire family dying is an interesting one. A skilled trained driver couldn't get the vehicle stopped. What chance do you think the housewives and college kids have ???? Toyota blew it bigtime in design and in trying to say it was floormats only. They probably will recover, but there is nothing out of proportion here,

What seems out of proportion is the media attention. Here's an interesting perspective... http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/03/10/weary_from_recalls_drivers_find_even_a_little_shake_can_rattle/

GGarrard

Don't forget the past:

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/in-defense-of-the-audi-5000/