If One Of The Big Three Was The One With The Toyota Problem, Would THEY Have Acted As Swiftly And Stopped Sales and Production?

If they knew about it two years ago, why did they have to let the death toll pile up before doing anything about it? And why did the federal government have to mention doing something about it before they took action?

You could ask the same question of the Explorer rollovers/Firestone, etc....still people suing to this day.

And they NEVER did what Toyota did.

Big ships don't turn quickly.

001

Did the government ask them to stop selling them? I'm not saying GM/Ford is in the clear for all the recalls they have made in the past, I'm just saying the situation is slightly different.

even if that were true, that would be one more friend then you ever make... oh, wow, that's too harsh...

"If One Of The Big Three Was The One With The Toyota Problem, Would THEY Have Acted As Swiftly And Stopped Sales and Production?"

Who acted swiftly with what? Did I miss something with this Toyota pedal thing?

exactly.

most certainly, they would NOT HAVE.

besides the Explorer/Firestone debacle, i present the ETREME OPPOSITE case, that of the

Pontiac Fiero

Almost from the beginning, GM became aware that the fiero was being shipped and sold with hairline cracks in the engine block. as much as FORTY-PERCENT of the blocks were coming from the foundry with these cracks.

However, because the fiero was (at that time) selling like hotcakes, GM management REFUSED to pause to have the problem resolved, and CONTINUED TO SELL defective products, so as to not lose sales momentum. they had even investigated the reported problem, and concluded that "Sixty-percent of the blocks are OK. So just continue moving the metal!"

Their plan was, to just SELL ALL the fieros they could. the hairline fractures WERE RECOGNIZED, but mgmt felt it would take a while before the problems actually became apparent to owners. then at that time, they could replace the bad engines under warranty.

True story. Part 2, both sad and FUNNY, to follow...

If you are going to cite prior problems, like with the Fiero at least TRY to get the information right.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_Fiero#Engine_fire_reputation

"The Associated Press quoted the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as saying it had "...received 148 complaints regarding Pontiac Fieros catching fire including reports of six injuries.... Low levels of engine oil may cause a connecting rod to break, allowing oil to escape and come into contact with engine parts."

To recap, the Fiero had an issue with its oiling system causing it to run low. That lead to the fires. It wasn't a block issue, it wasn't known defect at the start of production.

Also can you judge what a company did 30 years ago to say what they will do now (especially with completely new leadership)?

i DID get it right. i just didn't get arouind to Part 2 of the story.

so GM got away for awhile, selling thousands of fieros WITH DEFECTIVE ENGINE BLOCKS.

now in add'n to the hairline cracks, there was an engineering compromise. to stuff gm's Iron Duke 4 into the fiero, the oil pan had to be modified. resulting in a lowered crankcase capacity, with attendant lessened cooling and higher operating temperatures.

(in addition, until corrected, the fans were installed backwards, with HOT AIR being blown INTO the engine compartment, rather than outward.)

so it was just a matter of time before pontiac's "chickens" came home to roost. the hairline cracks expanded. many fieros overheated. some drivers not only ignored that, but at times revved up the engine quite high. with the result that many engines BLEW UP! and it got even worse!!!

the expiring engines spewed hot oil all over the engine compartment. with the consequence of CARS BURSTING IN FLAME!!! dramatic enuff. but since the cars were made of flammable FIBERGLASS, many cars just burned ALL THE WAY DOWN to the steel rims.

most dramatic!

all because GM was too greedy to forego some sales while they resolved the problem at the foundry. but that WAS their philosophy then: always maximize the bottom line FOR THE CURRENT QUARTER.

it was and in many cases STILL IS the gist of american corporate philosophy: maximize results BY THE QUARTER for the shareholders. who cares about next year, or the next, or next. "i want results NOW!" "get it done, like YESTERDAY!"

as one auto writer described it: "If all those fieros were on the NJ Turnpike at the same time, you would see A BURNING FIERO every QUARTER MILE, and a whole bunch of people running around like crazy!"

that would've been a scene so wild and crazy, you could ONLY improve on it by imagining the then gm ceo, like Nero, FIDDLING AWAY as all the cars burned! lmao!

Part 3: the funnyness continues!

once gm recognized that with the smaller oil pan, the cars were easily prone to EXACERBATING any cooling problems, and since it would be far too costly to re-engineer the oil pans, they simply implemented their "LAWYERS' FIX:"

their recall consisted of sending out a bunch of stickers for the dealers to affix to the inside of the fuel filler doors. the stickers "in essence" stated: Please check engine oil level at each fill-up, so your car won't burst into flames.

Part 4 of this tragi-COMEDY

eventually, after a number of years, gm finally managed to sort out all the issues with this ONCE popular car.

by then, they discovered their bean-counters had royally SCREWED UP. the car's pricing failed to account for ALL the expenses. so they refigured what it should cost to make a profit, and increased prices accordingly.

predicably, consumers did not appreciate the price increases. by then, the stories of the FLAMING Fieros had also gotten around. sales plummeted. so by the time the car was FINALLY made right, there was little choice but to pull the plug on it.

when a manager went to the fiero plant to inform the workers, the union shop steward wailed: "This morning, the car was just sick. Now you're telling me it's DEAD!!???"

Epilogue

so to return to the thread question, toyota reacted within a reasonable time frame, once the MOST PROBABLE cause became apparent. (runaway floormats.)
and responded again, with far more DRASTIC action, when a SECOND cause was realized. (sticky pedals.)

but GM even from the FIRST discovery of their problem (hairline cracks), decided to DEFER ACTION until the problems actually manifested, and customers' cars BLEW ENGINES and caused CAR FIRES! and they INTENTIONALLY tried to SELL as many of the defective cars as they could, until the problems manifested themselves.

and instead of not hesitating to spend hundreds of millions, and taking huge hits on lost sales, gm "SPLURGED" on a few measly bucks for warning stickers!

is it any wonder gm got such A LOUSY REPUTATION before hitting bottom and turning around?

I knew it would be only a matter of time before the turd "UAW1" would show up. He's so predictable and bias that I knew if it had anything to do with a blog about domestic cars, he would be here. BTW: All but one of the cars that were are Toyota's recall list, were cars built by your UAW unions at transplant factories over here. I've ask before if this website would do a story about quality comparison of cars built by transplant companies here versus being built abroad. UAW1 will tell us that he's NOT bias but if you search any post by him, it says otherwise. I wonder how I guessed that.

Come on people at least try to be correct, google some things before you post.

The ONLY Toyota plant that uses UAW workers would be the NUMMI plant in California, which is a joint operation with GM. All the other Toyota plants are completely NON-UNION.

And Toyota isn't blaming the labor for putting the vehicles together wrong, they are blaming an on spec part built by a supplier. The issues is that the spec'd piece didn't perform as expected under certain conditions.

SWIFTLY!

They have not acted swiftly they new about the problem more than two years ago!

Don't be so quick to jump on the big 3. It seems another article was made up out of thing air to get an argument against the big 3 US automakers. However I still have yet to see a full writeup on the new Ford Focus' coming out.

Let it also stand as fact that in the beginning Toyota dodged the issued quite liberally by telling people to remove their floor mats.

They also had the dealers zip tie the floor mats to the seat tracks, even though internal testing demonstrated that the floor mats were not to blame over a year prior.

ALL the investigating agencies studying the lexus es350 crash that started all the HARD LOOKS at the problem, DID CONCLUDE that the accelerator WAS jammed into the floormats. so that WAS a legitimate suspect cause.

the sticky pedals just turned out to be a SECOND possible dangerous part.

and only barely acknowledged lately, is the THIRD and most fatal flaw: nuts behind the wheel who don't know about the N position.

Honestly we have a few factors in play here.

Toyota initially repeatedly discounted the fact there was an issue internally. (Perhaps they were drinking their own secret sauce of perfection too much)

The Feds continually failed to link the repeated reports of an issue. (Perhaps they were drinking same sauce)

The Media at large FINALLY figured out that Toyota is basically mortal like everyone else, and is subject to the same pitfalls of the system. They took this as a crusade to enlighten the masses of a breakdown of the automotive world order as they knew it (More secret sauce here)

To put it in a nutshell Toyota was let down by one supplier that either by fault of their own, or by inadequate design created a common point of failure for millions of vehicles.

I am personally not sure that Toyota is out of the woods yet.

So far floor mats and sticking gas pedals are only linked to a hand full of cases of sudden acceleration. While they are being touted as the logical offending sources, I feel that this approach is too simplistic. I would not be surprised to find there is a gremlin in the ECU software somewhere. Software is not prefect and that gives more credence to the reason to build in safeguards where if both the gas and brake are depressed the engine just idles down.

Toyota did not stop production on their own accord. The NHTSA told them they had to stop, they were under law that they had to. So yes the Big 3 would have stopped as well because it was the NHTSA'a decision to do that, not Toyota. They would have continued selling them just like they had been... Camry, Tundra and all!

Quoting Detroit News "According to Chapter 301 of the Motor Safety Code, Toyota cannot legally sell the defective vehicles until it has a remedy.

Although Toyota is now following the letter of the law, the company was slow to react on its latest recall of 2.3 million vehicles. Per the rules and regulations of the NHTSA, Toyota should have immediately stopped sales of vehicles involved in the recall, but continued to sell potentially faulty vehicles for another 5 days."

So see, Toyota did NOT have the consumer's best interests at heart... So I hate to say it Agent 001, they are no better then the Big 3. They run in the same circles...

The fundamental premise of this posting is flawed. Toyota did NOT act swiftly. Fact is, it has known for far too long that it has a problem that resulted in fatalities. Indeed, months ago it publicized that it had addressed the issue head on by blaming "sticky floor mats." At that time the NHTSA took exception. It was not until the lawsuits were becoming too plentiful to ignore that Toyota took action. This same sort of inaction by an American company likely would have been met by claims of "same ole, same ole." I think the fact that Toyota has a reputation for quality resulted in its getting a free pass.

yes, they would have stopped production, toyota did not act swiftly.

Seems that when Chrysler assembly workers found the brake clip issue back in January, It was taken care of then.

1. Toyota was told by the U.S. Gov't. to cease production.
2. What does it matter what another company would do in the same position?

Errors are made by humans constantly. It is how you resolve the situation that counts.

Hey 91z4me & UAW1: You two better stop smoking those funny cigarettes. UAW1 he's just a butt head that "thinks" he's true auto enthusiast. His post are always one sided. USA today ran a story on 3/22/2007 titled "How American is that Car" listing EVERY manufacturer, what percentage of American made parts are in each model; whether that particular plant was unionized or not. Do some research you fool. I printed off that story because I thought it was very interesting. Toyota has their Tacoma, Camry, Corolla, Matrix, Avalon, Sequoia, Sienna, Tundra, Solara (when it was built at the time) all in the US as transplants.

The Avalon, Camry and Solara - are/were built in Kentucky - unionized according to USA Today; with 75%, 85%, 75% respectively with parts made in America.

Corolla built in California/Canada w/ 60% of parts made in America unionized; Matrix built California with 70% parts unionized made in America.

Sequoia and Sienna built at their Indiana plant 60%; Tacoma & Tundra built in California's unionized plant with 65% and 75% respectively of parts here.

You should do a little more research yourself. BTW: My brother worked at Ford Motor Company for 34 years before he retired recently; my sister worked at Chrysler 21 years; my Aunt is retiring from Audi/VW in Auburn Hills, MI this month after 37 years and I had worked as a contract programmer my first job out of college at GM in Warren, MI. So I know a little about the auto industry. At least I'm not predictable like that fool UAW1 who thinks his union buddies had "NOTHING" to do with the problems the BIG 3 are experiencing.

Since you are so smart, tell me what I said that was incorrect. What other plant besides the NUMMI GM/Toyota joint operation plant does Toyota employ UAW members?

I sometimes wonder if you and the other mods on site purposefully make inflammatory statements like this just to promote commenting on the article or, whether you are just toeing the company line of your biggest advertisers. Either way, it's pretty despicable.

First, Toyota did not act "swiftly" as you suggest in your title. In fact, you admit that "big ships don't turn quickly". Can you not see how you are contradicting yourself?

Toyota acted slowly. In fact our own Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood is quoted as saying it took "an enormous effort" to get Toyota to recall it's vehicles and that the company was "a little safety deaf". See: http://www.freep.com/article/20100202/BUSINESS01/100202049/1318/Official-U.S.-had-to-force-Toyota-into-safety-recall

The problem was first identified two years ago. After two years of inaction they first blamed this problem on floormats and recalled millions of cars. That wasn't the issue. Now they blame it on faulty accelerator pedals and recall even more automobiles. Finally, the federal government (which epitomizes slow action so when they get to something first it means you are just ignoring it) has to suggest to Toyota that they might not want to be selling cars that are faulty and killing people. Only then does Toyota act to stop selling several models.

Toyota didn't stop earlier because it's a numbers game to them. The number of faults as a percentage of the total car sales was so low that it was not economically advantageous to stop selling the cars. It was cheaper to just sell them and bring them in for a fix later. The ONLY thing that caused Toyota to take action was the threat posed by a government mandate. I can't believe anyone would insinuate that this deserves a pat on the back.

Now this is only my opinion but It seems pretty clear that Toyota has no clue what the problem actually is and is still scrambling to figure it out and deflect it as nothing serious (like the suggestion that it was just floormats). To me this problem doesn't sound like an mechanical problem. It sounds like an electronic system that is controlling throttle is malfunctioning. Many of the described accidents portray a sudden acceleration. NOT that they were accelerating and something got stuck as would be the most likely scenario in a mechanical failure.

My wife was recently talking about buying a Lexus and I put the kibash on that real quick. Driving is already one of the most dangerous activities we conduct on a daily basis. I don't want to have to worry about the most basic functions of my vehicle taking on a life of their own.

Japanese Cares about Japan, thats final. They are the most protectionits country in the world, so they would not do something for us if they were in the same place.

toyota didn't act swiftly. this story made headlines in summer '09 and they blamed it on floormats. then after more people died in the fall, it was the pedal to blame. when another toyota avalon killed 4 people in texas in december, toyota ran out of excuses. then, only after backed into a corner by the US government in january did they "act swiftly".

what kind of of revisionist history is your headline based on?

here's the new york times story explaining, in detail, just how 'swiftly' toyota acted. read the facts. they acted as sloooooowly as possible and only took real action when reprimanded.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/business/01toyota.html?scp=2&sq=toyota&st=cse

1uaw:

"Chevy cobalt effected cars 905k
Toyota effescted cars 8 million

Chevy Deaths from Cobalt 0
Toyota Deaths 20"


if i recall right, there were actually LESS THAN 10 deaths from the toyota incidents. and ~19 injuries (if i'm wrong, correct me.)

a TRIFLING amount compared to the 1,400 victims of the explorer/firestone fiasco.

further, as a result of JUST those less than 30 victims, the fact that toyota has recalled nearly 7 million vehicles for POTENTIAL problems is proof that they take this FAR MORE SERIOUSLY than the D3 ever did, or would.

for latecomers, see my update above RE: the pontiac fiero. it is FUNNY as well as tragic.