Does The Press Have Favorites?: Toyota's Defects Irk U.S. Automakers, Not Buyers

Executives of U.S. automakers often grouse when their vehicles are disparaged for defects and lapses in quality, saying models built by foreign automakers, especially Toyota Motor Corp., aren't judged as harshly.

The bellyachers now can count on a key ally in their campaign, as they put it, to level the playing field: Katsuaki Watanabe, the president of Toyota.

Last week, Watanabe said that Toyota has a quality problem that is more serious than any detected by surveys or publications such as Consumer Reports. The Toyota president promised that the company intends to regain consumer confidence and to revamp its quality-control processes, according to Nihon Keizai Shimbun, a Japanese financial newspaper.

``We're not perfect, we know that,'' said Dennis Cuneo, Toyota senior vice president in the U.S. ``We're humans. We always want to guard against being complacent.''


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1970toyotamarc - 7/25/2006 4:26:46 PM

+1 Boost

``When an American car company stages a recall, we see blaring headlines and hysterical rhetoric about the lousy quality of American-made cars and trucks,'' wrote Jason Vines, vice president of public affairs for DaimlerChrysler AG in a company blog on Oct. 24, 2005.

Unfair Treatment?

``But when one of the Teflon-coated automakers screws up, it's a blip given minimal play -- usually in the `briefs' section'' of the news report, he said, referring to Toyota and Honda Motor Co.

Anyone who thinks the media gives Toyota a pass has ben in a cave for the past 3 years. Enough with the lies, people. Just because you repeat the talking points over an over agian, that doesnt make them true.