Toyota and Total Recall
I hate being scammed, no matter who is doing it, and the Toyota bashing frenzy of the past week reeks of a scam designed to undermine Toyota’s success and buoy up American car makers who are both unwilling and unable to compete on matters of substance.
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, when testifying before the House appropriations committee, was asked what advice he would give to owners of Toyotas subject to the recall, he replied,
“My advice is, if anybody owns one of these vehicles, stop driving it, take it to the Toyota dealer because they believe they have the fix for it,”
Soon after, LaHood amended his statement to the press by removing the phrase “stop driving it”, but not soon enough to prevent shares in Toyota stock from plummeting.
When it comes to defective engineering and manufacturing, nobody can hold a candle to U.S. auto manufacturers. If you don’t believe me, look up the Chevy Corvair (made Ralph Nader famous) and the Ford Pinto, both of which earned their reputations as death machines. But those headline making events were just the tip of the iceberg. In years passed, whenever I bought a new car manufactured in the U.S., I knew I was in for it. The first few months of ownership always involved battling with the dealership to get things fixed. Do you remember the “Lemon Laws“. It came into being for one reason only. U. S. manufacturers built a lot of lemons and if you could get your car classified as a lemon, the manufacturer would be required to buy it back from you. Of course getting a car classified as a lemon could get your killed.
Ford Pinto Crash Test
US Auto Recalls
I finally learned that if I was very clever, I could get my hands on the list of recalls for a car model. Before the days of the Internet, getting it took some real creativity. Virtually every car I researched had a long list of recalls. Most recalls were for so-called “minor” defects and if you were not diligent in your research, you would never know the recalls even existed. Some were for nothing more than chipping paint, but others could have represented safety hazards in some conditions. I had one car in which the O2 sensor would unpredictably fail and the engine would stall as I motored at 70 mph down the freeway. Was that a safety hazard? You bet! Did it make the headlines? No, it took me 6-months to uncover the cause of “my” problem and the fact that there was a recall for it.
So, has Toyota been hiding the problems with their cars? If you listen to some, you might think so. Tough talking LaHood was ready to get those Japs.
Mr. LaHood said he wants to talk directly with Toyota Chief Executive Akio Toyoda about the safety concerns involving Toyota cars and the company’s handling of those issues.”This is very serious,” Mr. LaHood said at a breakfast with reporters in Washington. “After I talk with him, they’ll get it. We’re going to keep the pressure on.”
But I’m not convinced. It just doesn’t fit what I know about Toyota. What I know is, that over the years American automakers would never admit culpability for flaws in their cars, much less shut down their sales and manufacturing. And once caught, those same automakers would obstruct every effort at setting things right. Toyota, on other hand, has been quick to admit their errors, shut down operations, and then move forward with a fix. Given the impossibility of perfection, what more could we hope for?
No product can be perfect. Given the complexity of modern automobiles, if you look hard enough you will always find plenty that’s wrong. The key question is, when flaws are discovered, does the manufacturer move forward by correcting errors and improving the product, or do they dig their heels in and fight a rear-guard action? The evidence suggests that Toyota is one of those rare companies that sets a high value on moving forward. So long as that is the case, we should laud their methods and be delighted that they take their responsibility to the consumer, seriously.
It’s not that I want to defend Toyota, but I hate being scammed, and the current headlines aimed at dethroning Toyota, reek of a ginned-up feeding frenzy designed to make me think the Toyota ain’t all that much better than U.S. cars, but when I rent and drive a late model US manufactured car, I still come to the conclusion that when compared with a Toyota, the U.S. cars are crap created by companies who regard their customers with utter contempt, and like I said, I hate being scammed.
