Your take on the Toyota debacle?

I've owned Toyota's since 1985 when I bought my first 4x4. I've owned many over the years and my wife has a Sienna now. When it comes time for her to buy a new car it will be a Toyota. I'd even own a Toyota now if they had more sporty 2-door cars but they don't.

I think the biggest issue is that it took so long to figure out what was causing the problem. Not sure if they really know yet. Plus, a sticking gas peddle scares the heck out of people. Remember Audi's sudden acceleration of the mid 80's? Toyota's are good cars with a loyal following. They will over-come this.

 I loved my Toyota and put up with the recall at first.  I've watched my resale value drop as Toyota goes from blaming floor mats to sticky pedals.  Even now they can't say they've fixed the problem.  I'm of the opinion that there's also a software problem as some people have reported the cruise control coming on when it happened to them.  I watched the hearing yesterday where Toyota admitted that their priorities got out of wack as they concentrated on volume over safety.  I decided to trade in my Toyota yesterday since I don't want to take a chance with my family's safety or getting so upside down that I can't get out of it.  Maybe my next vehicle will be a Toyota again but they have to make some changes.

This impresses me as more of a media/political frenzy than anything.  Before the media picked up on this story, there were 19 fatal accidents attributed to faulty gas pedals and floor mats over the last decade; that's less than two a year.  There are 40,000 fatal car crashes in the U.S. every year.

Most cars built in the last few years have electronic throttle control systems (ETC). There is no throttle cable, only an electronic signal (by wire) from the pedal to the ECU (Engine Control Unit). Any vehicle fitted with ETC could have a malfunction if there is a problem with the signal.

Some manufacturers have "brake override" systems where pressing the brake pedal if the accelerator pedal is pressed (or malfunctioning) will cause the ECU to disregard the accelerator and allow the vehicle to be stopped. BMW and Nissan have this system (might be others).

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704197104575051261910244700.html

Wow Cy! I don't own a Toyota but since I live in Kentucy this is all over the radio. I never really thought about people being that worried about the problem I just assume it was all media hype.

 Its a trust issue as Toyota's handling of the situation hasn't been the best.  An email bragging about saving one hundred million dollars by avoiding a recall on the issue along with the inability to accurately diagnose the problem have people really wondering about the company.  Add the trust issues with the loss of resale value and it makes you seriously think about the advantages and disadvantages of keeping the vehicle.  Toyota's sales are down due to the lack of confidence in the product, not only for new vehicles but also the used models.  There is currently more supply than there is demand for.  As a result of all of this my vehicle lost about $4000 in value  recently according to kelly blue book(based on numbers I ran two weeks ago and this week).  While there is the possibility of some of the value coming back I don't see it all coming back.  Add in the congressional investigation with Toyota admitting priority problems plus not knowing if the recalls will totally fix the problem and I see the values continuing to go down.  There are rumors of Toyota increasing incentives to draw people back in which will also decrease the resale value.  Looking at the total picture I saw more risk than I was comfortable with and decided to cut my loses before I could no longer afford to.

Does driving a manual transmission side-step the demon-gas-pedal issue?

The current number or claimed fatalities related to Toyota accelerator pedals is 34.  Of the 40,000 fatal car crashes per year, only a tiny percentage are primarily caused by engineering or manufacturing defects.  Also, non-fatal car crashes can be pretty unpleasant, too.

Toyota is a big company and acts accordingly. They chased marketshare too rapidly, expanded their product line excessively and quality has suffered. And like any big company, it seems they've attempted to minimize or even hide serious flaws in their products. So what are you going to do? All the auto makers have had these problems and these behaviors.

If Toyota can fix the problem and maintain their actual and reputation for superior quality control, they're overcome this in time.

More personally, my wife is a Toyota loyalist (I drive a Honda currently). She said if she had to buy a new car tomorrow, she doesn't know what she'd do. I said we wouldn't buy a new car tomorrow, and we definitely wouldn't buy a Toyota tomorrow. We'd get by and wait and see what develops.

Without getting too political, you have a car company being questioned by two of it's competitors (remember the car bailout) and asked to air their dirty laundry.

While I will say Toyota should have acted faster and admitted and fixed their problems I will also say they are being questioned by the wrong branch of government.

Something just doesn't seem right in that scenario.

But should the Legislature be questioning them - that's the question.  I say no, the legislature has too many messes of its own to clean up.  This is better left to the judicial branch, and more importantly, the people.  It should be up to people like DaveF and his wife to decide whether Toyota is taking the necesary steps to ensure that its products are safe.

I've read this elsewhere.  IMO this is paranoid conspiracy nonsense.  The government response has absolutely nothing to do with the bailouts of US automakers.  If this was a GM or Chrysler problem we would be seeing the exact same response from all parties involved.

If you believe in a fully informed, rational and perfectly competitive marketplace, then perhaps. But we clearly don't have that, shown at least by the way Toyota has apparently kept safety information secret for a few years. I guess one might have the opinion that the gov't has no role in public safety.

I really don't think so.  Even though many people don't realize that a Camry is more "made in the USA" than many Fords and Chryslers, I really believe that Toyota is being eviscerated more by the public because it's a foreign auto maker.

Add to it, that in recent years, Toyota surpassed GM as the #1 manufacturer of automobiles worldwide and it's like a feeding frenzy.

Sadly, your vehicle lost a lot more than $4000 the moment it was first driven off the lot.

Automobiles are the worst investment out there.  Worrying about car values is wasted effort in my opinion.  They are big-ticket purchases separated by many years - hardly a commodity that can (or should) be tracked like stocks.

I currently own two Toyota's (neither one affected by the recall) and have had three other Toyotas in my life (both used and new).  I have never had a problem with any of them.  They are well-built, reliable cars.  I will always consider purchasing a Toyota and wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to anyone.

Losing thousands on a new vehicle by driving it off the lot is expected.  Suddenly losing thousands on a 2 year old vehicle is not a common thing.   

Pedantically: cars aren't investments, they're purchases. :)

And a car doesn't lose value until one realizes it by selling it for a low price. If you replace your car everything three years, then a sudden, unexpected drop in blue-book value is a problem. But if you drive your car for 10 yrs / 100k miles, it's not obvious this acute devaluation matters.

 Do bad things happen with mass produced product? Yes.

Is Toyota immune? Of course not.

When the fecal matter hit the rotary oscillator did Toyota respond in the best possible manner? No, it could have been better, but I speculate Toyota has actually done more than most other manf's would have in the same scenario.

I suspect somebody's head in Toyota city is going to roll for this (and given Japan's corporate culture I suspect that will happen in a very literal way), Toyota will continue to work its PR team into quadruple overtime and its quality scores will be back to the top of the charts in 24 months tops.

Word of mouth isn't a good equalizer in the marketplace?  And with the internet it's a lot easier to announce your love, or hate, for a product.  People are going to do their homework on stuff they think is important.  The great thing about the marketplace system is that if Toyota is really putting out products that are more harmful than their competitors, they will judged by the proper authority - the buying public. 

The government has a role, certainly, but it's exceeded its reach here as it has in just about every avenue of life.  What exactly are these hearings supposed to accomplish?  It allows people in many cases with no real business accomplishments or acumen to exoriate a company that historically has strived to succeed by putting out a superior product.

Toyota isn't the first to come under a Congressional investigation like this.  Ford's problems with Explorers is another example.  I'm pretty sure they have had quite a few hearings on other companies in the past. 

Quote: It's important and helps. But "word of mouth" is not synonymous with having an informed, rational marketplace.

And you didn't seem to be speaking against these specific hearings, whose value is debatable, but against the role of any gov't oversight regarding public safety.
Edited by DaveF - 3/1/10 at 12:52pm

I work in the automotive industry making brake rotors. (not for Toyota) I can say that each part is tested and retested and then tested again as an assembly and then tested again as a whole etc. before the parts are approved for mass production. Then the government and private companies (consumer reports, J.D. powers, etc.) also test. From when a part is requested for quotation, through design and prototype phase and then put into production takes anywhere from 2 - 5 years with many, many people involved. You would be surprised to know the amount of paperwork, meetings, testing and energy is involved in something as minor as removing 1/2 of paint on a surface. To have issues in the design and implementation phase go un-noticed would be very difficult.

Once a part is in production, the first sign of troubles would be warranty claims. This is a highly watched statistic because it is money given away that effects the bottom line and a company's reputation. Once again for a issue to go un-noticed would be very difficult. Now if the issues arise after the warranty expired, this would be harder to track.

Not only did Toyota have a reputation with the customers producing well built vehicles, but they also had the industry benchmark standard on automotive procedures and organization. There are many references on why you should do things like the Toyota system.

With that all being said, I have an extremely hard time believing that they were unaware of these issues with how serious they were and for how long they went on. To generalize, the Japanese culture has strong traditions involving "saving face" and also about not questioning or confronting a superior. I don't know if this played into these issues or not. I have not ever owned a Toyota, but I am sure that they have built many quality cars & trucks. And as mentioned there are bound to be issues with things that don't go as planned or don't work. To me the bottom line is their creditability. They did not bring these issues to light in a timely manor, and possibly covered them up, so when they say they fixed the issue, can they be believed?

To be fair, Kevin's position on this isn't entirely anti-government so much as anti-legislature:



What's interesting in that choice is that generally the judiciary is regarded as the least democratic of the three branches and therefore the least appropriate to represent an interest that's best left to "the people". The real problem, though, is that the judiciary never acts alone. It needs someone to bring a case. That means either a prosecutor (and now the executive branch has to get into the act) or a plaintiff -- and oops! the tort bar enters the picture. Somehow I suspect that's not what Kevin had in mind.
Edited by Michael Reuben - 3/1/10 at 1:46pm

Quote: According to purported Toyota documents from a whistleblower, they were aware of the problems for a couple of years now.

I didn't read it thusly initially (as my responses show), but fair enough. The problem, as I meagerly understand it, is that safety organizations like NHTSA (whose role might turn out lamentable, in reality) are not created or funded by the Judicial branch. So then this view seems to me as saying the gov't should only play a reactive role in public safety, with no proactive participation.

Broadly speaking (broad enough for this venue, I hope), I'd rather have safe drinking water regulated and verified proactively rather than only reactively suing the water treatment plant after people die.

Oh I agree entirely. But you probably already knew my attitude toward regulation from the financial crisis thread.

I see it from the point of view that people and the organizations they create will try to get away with whatever they can get away with. That is why laws and regulations end up being needed. If people weren't naturally self-serving then the legal profession wouldn't have any reason to exist. Toyota, as an organization, built up a reputation for quality, but obviously they figured that 100,000,000 dollars of extra profit was worth a few deaths and a massive loss in reputation. The blowback from their decision will affect them far beyond the few extra dollars of profit that they tried to hang on to. Wait until the lawsuits start piling up from people who lost family members because of Toyota's greed and venality. I definitely know that I would think twice about buying any of their vehicles now, whereas before I wouldn't have thought twice. Toyota, in one fell swoop, has put itself right in line with the former big 3 in showing that it considers a few extra dollars as more important than their customer's lives.