toyota getting hammered

[rosconey]

been watching lentz get hammered by congress-
in all honesty toyota could have sent a stock boy and have been better represented-lol-or sgt shultz-because all he says is "i know nothing"

sounds like they knew for 10 years and didnt care,just paid lobyists to quel issues-

corporate management looks real bad and un careing - :mad:

[BBQ BOY]

I guess this is going to wonders to the value of my Toyota car.

[Blerv]

I like how everyone who's "vehicle was speeding out of control to 100mph" were afraid for their lives but were able to pick up the phone and call a loved one.

"I'm going to die!...can I put you on speaker phone?"

I don't buy that the brakes don't work. I believe car and driver mounted an extensive test and could stop a 500 hp Rousch Mustang so a 260 hp Toyota should be do-able.

[nathan310]

Whoa!

[StangBang]

The crappiest thing about it is they knew about these problems for a while and did nothing about it. I was watching CNN and a woman who owned a Lexus had this issue causing her to go into a guardrail. She didn't die nor was anyone else killed, but when she went to Lexus to get the problem fixed toyota basically told her to screw herself and that she wasn't maintaining the brakes correctly (on a 2k mile new car) After several attempts to get an answer and get her problems fixed toyota still told her she should of maintained the vehicle better.

It's just corporate greed and the lack of caring for the consumer. I know in some cases people say turn the car off, but on most Lexus vehicles it is an electronic button which the woman said she tried to push and it still would not turn the vehicle off. (of course she still had neutral as an option, but I'm not going into how people need to be driving and not screwing around while driving etc. because its an issue of customer service)

It's just a **** shame people have to die before a company decides they should get off there A$$ and set things straight like they should have in the first place.

[JNewell]

been watching lentz get hammered by congress-
in all honesty toyota could have sent a stock boy and have been better represented-lol-or sgt shultz-because all he says is "i know nothing"

sounds like they knew for 10 years and didnt care,just paid lobyists to quel issues-

corporate management looks real bad and un careing - :mad:

Many people here are probably too young to remember, but many in Japan do remember - when Toyota was literally hammered, as in sledge hammers, by members of Congress back in the 1980s.

Mr. Toyoda is at least tone-deaf and probably a cretin, but that doesn't distinguish him from 99.999+ of US companies with revenues > $25MM.

[araneae]

I heard an interview on NPR today that was with a guy from Consumer Reports. He stated that the number of incidents had realistically affected so few people in the grand scheme of things that it did not lower Toyota's reliability ratings. Their top pick is in fact a Lexus. Recalls happen, there are dozens every year, from every automaker.

I am not saying that Toyota is a perfect corporate citizen, but that's par for the course these days. They weighed the incident like a business decision and it has bit them in the rear.

[tonydahose]

ok i had to post up in this just because of the lexus story. my wife is as teacher. she wanted a nice car but taught in the catholic schools(which don't pay s*&*) she was happy teaching there and i always told her if she wanted a nice car (she had as she put it "a college grad car", a pontiac sunfire, stickshift too :p ) long story short i told her to get a better paying job if she wanted a nicer car. she finally made the switch to a public school job for other reasons than money and we ended up buying a used lexus 2002 es300. she loooovvvesss this car. she has told me everyday she drives it that it is like being on a vacation, whatever that means. bottom line she is happy with it which in turn makes life easy for me...err i mean me happy too :D . skip a few years down the road, i do or try to do all the maintenance on the car. the car had just gone off of warranty. she is driving behind a dumpster semi on the highway and a bunch of rocks hits her car, she moves over and passes said semi. when she gets to work she hits the one button moon roof to close it. she hears this awful screeech while the moonroof is trying to close and then it opens back up again. does she look for an obstruction before hitting the button again. NO. she hits the button again. so now it gets wedged with the pebble in the track and the moonroof at a slight bend. i get the call and of course it is going to rain today so i get to sit in traffic some more, i just got off of work, and go trade cars with her. i take it to the dealer, they dont have a free loaner for me so i get a courtesy drive home. A few hours later the service rep calls me and tells me that they have to take the whole liner out on the inside to get to this :eek: :eek:. im like "ok, how much is this going to cost me?" he says "dont worry about it." well i shut my mouth right then and there and say ok. a few hours later he calls me and says that the motor burned out while they were trying to get it apart. :eek: :eek: :eek: so it will be another day before it is fixed. so the day of judgement comes and i go to pick up the car, he tells me to go to the cashier where all i do is sign a piece of paper. i asked her if this is a common thing, the whole no payment idea because i am liking it :p . she tells me that it is a common pratice for lexus (i dont know if it was this dealer's or the company's pratice, i am guessing it was lexus to take care of the first big thing that goes wrong after the warranty expires. the bill was $2400 for all of this. well i was happier than a pig in you know what. i am pretty big into buying american cars/trucks but the wife insisted on this lexus for her car. i doubt i would have seen the same actions done but another automotive company.
Round 2: A year or so and the mrs tells me the brakes are wobbly. i get in and i can tell her rotors need to be cut. i proceed to jack the car up and i cant get the rotors off. i call my mechanic and he tells me to use the BFH-big freaking hammer. well it is late so i decide to do it tomorrow. i try again and no luck so i throw the pads on really quick, too quickly, and drive over to my mechanic's place since it is right down the road. it is sunday and he is closed :mad: . i drive back home and hear this horrendous noise as i apply the brakes. yep, you guessed it, i put the brake pads on backwards in my haste. well when i get home the rotors are just gouged to **** and back. i flip the pads around the right way and tell the wife that i can't get the rotors off so we need to take it to the dealer (no i didnt fess up to her, i didnt see a reason :p ). i take them in and thanks goodness there is a TSB on the brakes. another job completely free brakes and rotors. i pull a mechanic off to the side and ask him why i cant get these **** rotors off and he shows me to screw holes where you place 2 bolts and turn them in which releases a lock form the inside just so regular backyard mechanics cant do their own brakes. i know this has been a long post but i figured i should add it to this thread because of how well i have been treated by lexus. knock on wood it has almost 80K miles on it and those 2 things were the only mechanical problems i have had, wait, a back window motor went out but since my wife uses the A/C most of the time i didnt see the need to spend $500 to fix it. i drive both a ford and a chevy but my wife will be a Lexus customer for life, she already has told me that.

[StangBang]

Tony, Thanks for the story! My mother owns a Lexus SC430 and it is her second Lexus. The other being a GS350. I was not trying to bash lexus as she has had nothing but luck with hers as well and is always treated great when she goes into the store. I think like you said it must depend on individual stores, because Schofield Lexus has always taken care of her. She takes it to them frequently to have them wash it for free lol
They are great cars, I just think Toyota should have looked at the womans Lexus instead of trying to cover it up

[Blerv]

If you can't verify a problem there's nothing that can be done. It's not always about conspiracy.

It's tougher to recall 10m+ vehicles than Some people think. The company has to consider the finances involved, shareholders, and 100,000 American workers. It's not a light burden.

This is why Ford's cruise control recall took YEARS to complete. I think there were 5 or 6 revisions adding vehicles to the mix. They could have blanket fixed but it's not cheap .

At the moment the majority of consumers are freaking out based on a placebo effect (99.9999999 of them). The media loves filth reporting and every other company is trying to cash in. Who can blame them.

I'm just a bit jaded with the entire after-sales repair industry. I have had "lemon!" blubbered in my face more than the local Albertsons produce clerk. It doesn't matter the emblem, there's always problems and dirt...Toyota has just stayed cleaner than some.

Truthfully the mass public thinks you can read a new car with a scanner like a crystal ball. They forget we have made extremely complex products with thousands of moving parts and circuits. There's a reason those techs go to school for years and buy $15-60,000 in tools. Still, if the symptoms don't show and there is no code...it's a crapshoot.

All of this is just blabbering to most you guys. It's not directed at anyone but is just a monologue about the situation. I occasionally poke at certain makers but they are all good in my eyes. We all have problems...just different flavors.

Edit: trimmed some crap. Not all of it tho ;p

[tonydahose]

Sorry about your luck with the Lexus Tony.

i think you read the wrong story, i am happy with mine and how they have taken care of any problems..

[Blerv]

Ack sorry about that.

I woke up at 2am and have been on connecting flights all day. I skim read between flights and put my foot in my mouth!

I'm gonna hold back on the forums till my eyes and brain reset. The long rants will atleast have a chance of making sense. Lol

Everyone here is super cool and I respect the points and discussion. I'm gleaming knowledge every day :) .

[Daniel]

To me personally, the most alarming information that has been brought to light is that Toyota knew that there was a problem and seemingly did nothing to correct it. Whether this information is accurate or not, I do not know.

This is not new for car manufacturers or other companies. However, I have always felt that Toyota was better than that-a cut above the norm. They have a history of the best manufacturing quality and fewest defects of any manufacturer.

Toyota will get past this situation and be back on track. People will forgive them. Like Toyota states in their commercial, maybe they will learn something from it. They have long made a great product and will continue to do so.

Congress is simply grandstanding and using this issue to advance their own agenda. I do not really think that they give a **** about our safety.

[Slick]

I ran accross this article from a link on Fark.com.

http://news.discovery.com/tech/
toyota-recall-software-code.html

It is worth a read.

I can not get the url to post correctly. The address is both lines. You will have to copy and paste.

The bottom line is the avionics in a F-22 runs on 1.7 million lines of code whereas an S-class Mercedies uses about 20 million lines of code.

[MCM]

Still the best out there..... LOL LOL

[rosconey]

well im selling my scion because of a lack service-tranny has a downshift clunk,they tell me its aok and totally normal-yup every well made auto ive ever driven has a clunk-lol-also has a tsb on the main wire harness,yet they wont replace because no issues yet,if it was a big enough issue to change early in production they should fix the ones already made like mine-no they will wait till mine goes after warranty then charge-

add in the truck frame fiasco thats 10-15 years old and never fixed

i dont have faith in them anymore-toyota now sells death traps and shoddy built cars and doesnt fix them unless the government tells them too-wrong way to keep customers-

this was my 2nd yoda and will be the last :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[dbcad]

I own a 2007 Corolla and am very satisfied with it.
When I had an opportunity to pay cash for a new car I chose the Toyota because I never had to fix one during my 15 years as a professional auto mechanic. My only experience with them involved routine maintenance (brakes, clutches etc). In my experience they've always been good solid cars.
I can't say that for Chevy, Ford, and Chrysler. The quality of those makes were iffy at best during the 80's and 90's.

Toyota might have let quality slip a little in recent years in their quest for global dominance, but the real reason this story got so big was it's getting sucked into the crazy 24 hour news cycle that has evolved over the past several years. The way "news" is reported and dramatized on cable networks skews and distorts the information. I never trust what the "news" says verbatim. I like to do my own research.

I'm still very glad I own my little Corolla. It's a wonderful little car. I bought it for the same reason I buy :spyder: 's, quality!

Charlie

[MCM]

"add in the truck frame fiasco thats 10-15 years old and never fixed"


Please bring me up to speed on this. Everyday I drive a 1995 T100 Xtra cab
I bought new 4 miles from the Pacific ocean to work 50' from the Pacific ocean. Never noticed any rust? Where exactly is this problem located?
I do try to wax it every couple years. No real rust anywhere? Undercarriage, paint etc.

Thanks

[MCM]

To me the most alarming thing from all of this is the fact that its one Car Co. going after another. LOL LOL

GM V.S. Toyota.

Between my wife and adult kids, we have 4 Toyota products. Ranging from 1995 to 2005. To me there still the best daily driven cars and trucks on the market. (Sports cars, not so much)
Sorry, I am just not buying it. Maybe due to my mechanical back ground.
% wise, I am sure they are still at or near the top.
Many car owners have no idea what its like driving for 10-15 years with just minor maint. The 1995 T-100 I mentioned above is still on its orig rotors.
And I do not drive like an old lady. Its just fricken amazing.

Time will tell. But I think this is really being over blown.
I would like to see a comparision of deaths due to mech problems with the Big 3, throw in Honda and Nissan as well. Per 100,000 cars or something.
I would not be surprised is they looked about the same..........
Or others worse.

[The Deacon]

I would like to see a comparision of deaths due to mech problems with the Big 3, throw in Honda and Nissan as well. Per 100,000 cars or something.
I would not be surprised is they looked about the same..........
Or others worse.

I'd bet you are right. I'd also bet putting together such figures would be difficult, at best. Unlike airplane crashes, auto accidents are rarely investigated thoroughly and scientifically.

I'd also agree the whole "problem" with Toyota has been overblown by a press with a desperate need for "dirty laundry" to report on and is being capitalized upon by other makers.

As a computer programmer, I also understand that a problem which cannot be duplicated in a test environment can't always be fixed, especially if the person who experienced it can't tell you the last five thiings they did just before it happened. That can be hard enough for a computer problem, where there is only one "user" generating input. On an automobile, where something as trivial as someone in the back seat rolling a window up or down, can conceivably interact with other "inputs", it's a thousand times harder.

Still, assuming even some of what's been reported is true, I'm somewhat disappointed by how Toyota handled this. It does seem that, in the name of profit, they swept some stuff under the rug which could, and should, have been addressed. Would it stop me from buying one next time I'm in the market for a car, probably not. I still look back fondly on my '93 Geo Prizm. It was one of the most reliable cars I've ever owned.