Come on people. How can anyone defend Toyota, claiming they acted quickly and with great concern for th eir customers? This whole thing has been a whitewash.
2 days ago tehey did not know what was causing the problem, now suddenly they had the fix and millions of the part ready to distribute?
At minimum it takes weeks to make the part, and that doesn’t include the time to design and test it. Clearly Toyota has known about this problem and been working on it for many months. Their hand was force and that is the ONLY reason they stopped selling the cars. Don’t buy into their hype, they have been hiding safety flaws for years.
I think we over think Toyota’s response. Their first obligation is to their share holders. If that means being less than totally honest with their customers, telling them what they think they want to hear instead of the truth, that’s the corporate way.
Every company tries to fill a nitch. Theirs is the perceived quality of personal consumer transportation whose base they are trying to protect. Heck, many doctors do the same thing to protect their income. What makes Toyota any different.
You may be expecting too much from them ! Corps. behave like sociopaths.
I was referring to the media and general public believing this was a quick action.
Because the media and general public is expecting too much from Toyota or any large corporation; both are gullible to think it would be resolved quickly. Corporates have their own system of government and that interest must be satisfied first. That takes timmmmmmmmmme. And some of you guys thought the federal govt. alone was slow and less than forthright.
Have you ever worked on a recall action where government regulators are involved? I have. If you haven’t, you don’t know squat about the process.
Yes, they have known internally what the problem was and also their intended fixes for it. No one in their right mind would rush out at the first sign of a solution and start telling the general public about it. Mainly because if their subsequent verification process does not confirm the solution, they have egg on their face and it creates even more concern amoung the consumer base. They want to be absolutely sure the problem is well understood and the solution is rigorously tested before they tell you (the consumer) what the problem and solution are. This takes MONTHS to accomplish even with all hands on board.
Now add in government regulators and their entire qualification process and it stretches the whole thing out even more.
The idea that any consumer would be involved in the communication process beyond the normal “we’re working on it to the best of our abilities” is ridiculous. It would simply create more confusion and mass hysteria than has already occurred. Regardless, I doubt it would stop the conspiracy theorists anyway…
create more confusion and mass hysteria than has already occurred.
I would argue that lack of and even “disinformation” has nothing to do with “mass hysteria” incentive. It’s “loss of profit” incentive. It’s not conspiracy theory, it’s a fact of corporate life. Heaven forbid you should let the public know where you are in the process…let’s just prevent mass hysteria.
Good try though…I’m still not convinced I should trust Toyota more than your personal experience whose opinion I would value more, because you were somewhere but not part of Toyota.
And that’s what I mean about sociopathic nature of corps…a family,personal or any problem of trust “is” handled by immediately coming out…with the truth whether the fix is ready or not.
Maybe in retrospect, we’ll know if was handled correctly, eventually, if we all live that long.
There is no doubt that corporations act in their best interests. Anyone who believes they have an altruistic mission is delusional or seriously misinformed. The original question was one of speed. They are not going to open up their internal processes to scrutiny by consumers who are, arguably, mostly comprised of mechanically unskilled or lacking knowledge about such matters. Early information is often wrong and the process must be allowed to be completed prior to announcing what the actual root cause was and the solution has been proven to the satisfaction of all interested parties.
As far as fixes of this type of nature go, this was a fairly rapid process IMO. It might not seem so from a consumer perspective since we are now expecting everything to occur in a nanosecond. But sound engineering requires a lot of time and manpower, especially when an oversight has occurred and there is so much scrutiny being placed on a correct resolution.
I don’t have any trust in a corporation doing anything that does not benefit them directly. However, Toyota has built a reputation on quality which is now tarnished and will take some time to restore. That reputation was the cornerstone of their business. They will do everything they can do to retain and minimize the damage to it. Coming out prematurely with inaccurate or untested solutions would be more damaging to their image than saying “we’re working on it!”.
A news site that I read this morning said that customer complaints at Toyota that are frequent enough to register follow a path that includes marketing, then engineering and then vendors if action is to be initiated. The complaints go to Japan first and then back to Toyota in the US and then to the US vendor as appropriate.
Revised tooling in the quantities required can likely not be done instantly and of course, duplicating the problem to verify it in an engineering/development lab requires time. From what I have seen, the problem involves humidity and if humidity induced expansion of plastic parts is a factor, that requires time to duplicate as well as plastic parts do not absorb humidity immediately.
The problem seems to involve a friction-inducing device that helps to hold a gas pedal in position, friction that would otherwise be supplied by a throttle cable in a mechanically actuated throttle setup. For the existing vehicle fix, a simple flat spacer is installed to partially or completely remove the effect of the apparently spring loaded friction-inducing device. I wonder if this will be a permanent solution if it will cause gas pedals to feel too easily adjustable instead of offering some resistance to foot movement.
To answer, the OP’s concern, it seems that somewhere in Toyota’s chain of response, addressing the problem was buried or delayed if they knew of it for years. It could simply be that the problem was not sufficiently recognized as actionable. It is entirely possible for any company to screw up and it is possible that Toyota will take a close look at it’s response to customer input. In some ways, the oriental car companies who are recent arrivals to the US car market within 30 or so years and not being around for 100 years, are still on a learning curve.
This view is, of course, subject to newer information when available.
Actually, my concern was not Toyota’s response, which was predictably slow and misleading. My commentary is on the average man-on-the-street’s stating that the response was swift, as seen in countless tv news clips.
If the average man on the street feels that way, then their PR is working.
My marketing professor told us about quality problems Toyota was having way back in fall 2004. Quality issues at Toyota are nothing new.
From what I have seen, the news media have been using their usual fear mongering tactics to raise ratings. It doesn’t seem like they are apologists.
I’m a Toyotaphile, and I’m not apologizing. They screwed up. Big time. They should not have gone forward the way they did. I’m not totally comfortable with the shim fix either.
Toyota certainly isn’t the first to have a safety problem. They seem to ultimately have handled it better than some, but this one should not have happened. They’re claiming moisture in the mechanism increasing friction, but I have to tell you that environmental testing is part and parcel of the validation tests for the design and the qualification tests that all supppliers must pass. And, I wonder, why is the problem only on the mechanisms built in North America?
Some knuckles deserve to get rapped.
Interesting article…
The simplest, armchair solution would be to just use the Denso parts and replace all the other pedals. But, I know in reality it’d be a lot more complicated than that. They issued a recall for the floor mats a while back, and maybe, they really did think that was the problem before the incidents occurred. However, with more incidents and lawyers already frothing at the mouth from the mat issue, they probably decided to look into it more, especially since some Euro specs might have issues as well.
Will they be able to “save face”? I doubt it. Just look at the Pinto, Vega, and Yugo jokes still going around 20~30 years after they happened
Hey, I liked my Vega…even if parts did fall off as I drove down the road. That rear axle sliding out of the housing was an adventure!
As for Yugo, it starred in its own movie…“Drowning Mona” with Danny DeVito and Bette Midler. Every car in the whole movie was a Yugo! Good mmovie.
“They’re claiming moisture in the mechanism increasing friction, but I have to tell you that environmental testing is part and parcel of the validation tests for the design and the qualification tests that all supppliers must pass.”
Environmental testing is typically compressed into a very short time span to make it cost effective. The mechanism may not be exercised to the extend found in a life test while the environmental exposure is underway. One of the biggest problems with environmental testing is that the environment might not accurately represent the most extreme environment seen by the car. Another problem is that some factors may magnify another effect, but not be tested together. Environmental testing is a difficult business.
I was in LaHood’s corner until he said that this could be the worst safety problem since he started working for DOT. They guy’s only been there a couple of months. Before that, he was a US Representative to Congress for 15 years. All that tough talk and then he blows it with that silly puffing.
Name 1 car company that has not had a recall! Stuff happens, you can read this board and find out how to deal with it safely if it happens, pinto tanks, audi brakes, gm engine fires the list goes on, knowledge is power, it is like a recent lawsuit, the school bus broke down and kids had problems because they only had on t shirts and blue jeans and the temp was 5 below. Don’t go anywhere in 5 below with only a t shirt and blue jeans, don’t expect your life is going to be as safe as living in a padded cell, prepare for the unexpected.
I live on the edge of a cliff, overhanging an earthquake fault, in an area with mud slides, and my neighborhood was completely burned 20 years ago in a wildfire that destroyed 3200 houses. I ride 2 wheeled vehicles on busy streets. I eat ice cream. I don’t exercise enough. By, by golly, if the gas pedal sticks on my Toyota and I have to put it in neutral and coast to the side of the road, I’m going to sue everyone in sight, because that fool car is just not safe!!!
And all that Toyota company is interested in is profits!!!
Shocking.
I imagine that the throttle on Toyotas are electronic, no real connection fron the accelerator to the engine. Just something else that can fail,