Toyota's Woes

This accelerator thing may have really stuffed Toyota's position as the dominant car maker. When Mercedes were having all their fly-by-wire issues ten years ago there was almost no media attention. But this is huge worldwide and a massive number of buyers will now look elsewhere in the next few years.
I also like the way Honda decided to recall 600,000 cars at the exact time it there's not only the perfect distraction but also the positive spin of them appearring to be on the front foot with quality, unlike Toyota.

i guess whats happening to toyota is what happened to gm, you get lazy when youre at the top. sucks that they spent decades building a reputation for quality and now they seem to be undoing it in the blink of an eye

You'd think they'd have learned from what happened to Mitsubishi when they were covering up problems that needed recalls.

Yeah, Mazda stopped the sale of Mazda 3's two years ago because they had floor mat/accelerating issues issues and no one batted an eye.

There's much more to it...

I am basically going to repeat what I read in a couple articles... because those articles made quite an impact on me, and will add my own opinions and viewpoints to the mix

1) Toyota built its name on quality

The whole reason you buy a toyota (or honda) and not a chrysler or chevy is because of quality. Quality quality quality. JD power this, reliability that, "look ma, no hollow plastics" there.

Now (I will be dramatic and exagerated on purpose) your toyota doesn't only have bad quality too, it can kill you. See how bad this problem is?

There's something about "sticking accelerators" that grab the most dramatic headlines. Consider this, when I was reading an Audi A4 car review in road & track in 2002 or so, they kept mentioning an audi "sticking accelerator" issue that apparently happened in the 80's...

Where does this leave toyota? (My opinion is they will get a little bit of a free pass on this, people will forget and they will get away with something ford/chevy/chrysler would never get away with, but I don't mind, I don't want to see toyota go down)

2) Japan's suffering and the changing of the world economic order (this truly scares me)

Some countries create, innovate, revolutionize. Some countries copy, bootleg and take advantage.

Japan has been suffering for a while now. Japan airlines is doing terribly. Some japanese electronics giants have had some quality issues and/or completely missed the wave regarding some new trends (does this sound like GM?). But why? Because other asian companies are basically doing the same japan does, for cheaper. Electronics and cars, specifically. (Hell, maybe even martial arts? taekwondo is nothing more than a sissified karate, and look at who's the olympic sport!)

Toyota was focused on quality. Then all of a sudden these korean and asian brands do toyota-like cars for cheap, and toyota needs to cut costs. Where does this take toyota? Oh yes, GETTING CHEAPER VENDORS. They were forced to use non-japanese parts suppliers. And to cut costs here and there (sounds like detroit to you now?). Japan airlines was also cannibalized by korean airlines this way, by the way.

The world seems to be shifting towards a "do an existing thing for cheap" mentality, repping huge economic benefits. This scares me.

Wait until the toyotas, nintendos and japans of the world go down, and the chinas and koreas of the world rise. Then you will see zero spending on innovation, r&d or new designs. China is no longer a poor country. Yet their cars in many, many instances grotesque bootlegs of existing designs from makers that cared enough to do some r&d. Did you hear about that grotesque bootleg disneyland existing in china? (Complete with Mickey Mouse a cat with overgrown ears) or what about the newest super mario galaxy bootleg from china, duludubi star

It's easy to knock off people/countries that try hard to innovate, but if those go under, the world will stall... trust me we don't want to drive this instead of a CR-V: http://www.autoblog.com/2005/04/16/chinese-copy-cats/

I don't mind the Chinese Disney too much, simply because the laws were changed in the US for the sole purposes of the Disney corporation. Fuck them.

The Chinese vehicle rip-offs are hilarious though because the manufacturers are desperate for them not to be sold in markets outside China, while being very careful not to offend the government of the worlds largest and soon most profitable car market.

I don't think you can lump Korea in with China at all. Everyone starts at the bottom and works their way up (Japanese cars were pretty shit in the 60s and 70s), Korea just started later. And really, I can't point to a single competitive Japanese car that I'd rather have than a Genesis Coupe or Sedan, or a Kia Forte, when it comes to design, performance, features, and value.

And yeah, Toyota's accelerator and brake troubles are maybe troubling. But they'll work themselves out, Toyota will still be a behemoth in the market, people will forget, and I don't care about cars anymore.

Turbofrog wrote:And yeah, Toyota's accelerator and brake troubles are maybe troubling. But they'll work themselves out, Toyota will still be a behemoth in the market, people will forget, and I don't care about cars anymore.

Ford made not one, but two models with a propensity to explode when struck in the rear. Right now they are a bit of a media darling because they didn't take bailout money and are rolling out some good products. Perfect example of just how things change, and how temporary image downturns can be.

Meh. Sudden acceleration=morons who can't fucking drive.
That's what happened to Audi in the 80s, and that's at least part of what is happening to Toyota now.

It's called neutral people. Slip it in and let the engine bounce off the rev limiter.

When Drive-by-Wire was beginning to be discussed when I was in tech school 6 years ago, I told people that one day all this electronic bullshit was going to cause a huge problem.

I kind of worry some days with my work van. It's an '07 GMC and it's electronic throttle. I won't be as stupid as some of these people if something were to happen.

SBF wrote:It's called neutral people. Slip it in and let the engine bounce off the rev limiter.

When Drive-by-Wire was beginning to be discussed when I was in tech school 6 years ago, I told people that one day all this electronic bullshit was going to cause a huge problem.

I kind of worry some days with my work van. It's an '07 GMC and it's electronic throttle. I won't be as stupid as some of these people if something were to happen.

Drive by wire was causing problems for Mercedes 10 years ago.

I will agree that drive-by-wire is a bad idea and a solution to a problem that didn't exist. That's the only reason I haven't completely discounted the claims about Priuses turning demonic.

There was nothing wrong with a throttle cable. Now its electric wires in a loom of hundreds that could go bad at any time. Spectacular.