Toyota Fretting Over Quality

I think this line pretty much sums up the difference between two archetypal giants of japanese vs. american car builders. Could you imagine the same article saying "GM is fretting over quality"? Doubtful.

Japanese are much more concerned about the long-term view, whereas the american car manufacturers are more concerned about the short term. Looking at where this has gotten GM lately... I'd say that Toyota is right to worry about quality.

On a similar topic, why does anyone care who makes the most cars? Toyota's market cap is like 14x that of GM's, and all meaningful indicators have long since favored Toyota vs. GM.

 

I don't ever want to be a Toyota-can-do-no-wrong apologist, but you have to respect a company that acknowledges a product quality problems, takes steps to counteract them---and airs its dirty laundry publicly.

Ford, responding to the ascendancy of the Japanese automobile industry in the---when? late 80s-early 90s?---responded in a backhanded way: an advertising campaign proclaiming that "at Ford, Quality is Job One!". The campaign eventually petered out. The result? We see it today.

Bill Ford told the National Press Club a week ago that Ford wanted millions in direct subsidies from Uncle Sam, for R & D and to re-tool. His rationale? The Japanese government had subsidized Japanese carmakers to propel them to their
competitive edge. Now we should do the same. Hey, "we" had bailed out Chrysler and Harley-Davidson, right?

There is already an amazing amount of Corporate Welfare in the US that the public knows little or nothing about, because it is done in "quieter ways", such as tax subsidies and incentives, than the checks that individual "welfare recipients" used to receive in the mail on the first of the month.

The Bush energy bill that passed in June contained a lot of subsidies for oil and coal companies, among other traditional recipients of largesse. When an oil company exec was asked a couple of weeks ago by an enterprising journalist what his company was going to DO with the subsidy it received (against the backdrop of the quarterly reports of record oil company profits), his response was, "we don't really need it".

 

I assume Tideland would be considered an 'educated' consumer. If so, where did his perceptions come from? Tideland, you need to get your facts straight, what market are you talking about? Is Toyota any more concerned with the quality than the "perception" of that quality? How did Toyota's concern make it into the news? A leak? C'mon you all know better than that. Toyota is a master at maneuvering the Amercian Press.

 

The corporate version of today's "entitlement mentality" in action. Everyone wants it all and right now and of course with a tax cut to boot.

Oh, and if I fail it's someone else's fault so carry me but if I succeed it's yeah, oh, yeah, it's all about me. Bring back the debtor's prison and corporal punishment.

Sell phone.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...opinion/columns

 

Right, right, we all know that the evil Toyota empire cares nothing about quality or satisfying their consumers, rather, they only use the American media to give the perception they care. How do we know? Well, why on earth would an auto company actually care about making quality products?

That is some slick reverse psychology marketing from Toyota, make a story about how they are slipping in quality (point out their own faults) so people will feel good about them trying to do better. The depths that the evil empire will take to confuse the American public.

On an non-facetious fashion, I really do hope that Toyota rededicates themselves to quality and doesn't let the goal of #1 be more important than the #1 in quality.

 

I think this is freakin' amazing. Toyota are already #1 in quality according to the independent statistics from Consumer Reports--yet a tiny glitch in quality gets them immediately scrambling to fix the problem. Most companies would just ignore the whole thing and wait until their reputation for reliability had significantly reduced or even vanished. (*cough* Volkswagen.)

 

Well, let's try it this way:

Quality problems are so rare at Toyota, whenever they do pop up, it makes headlines. Sadly, many buyers have come to expect a lower standard of quality from The Big Three.

Although The General has won a JD Powers & nice person. award for improving initial quality, the 3 year study on quality has shown the domestic producers have a long way to go.

The one bright spot in GM's lineup is Buick. My parents purchased a 2003 Buick LeSabre in 2004, and it appears to be a fine car.

It was a lease return with only 15,000km on it. I insisted the Buick dealer service the transaxle, and I flushed/bled the brakes myself. It's a nice car, I like driving it.

 

Actually, in this year's Initial Quality survey, Lexus was the #1 Brand, and Toyota overall (Lexus + Scion + Toyota) was #1 manufacturer.

But, Buick, Lincoln and Cadillac all beat out the Toyota Brand.

The Camry didn't even make the top three list, beat out by the Malibu, Sonata and Jetta in entry mid size.

The Avalon also missed, beaten by the Le Sabre, Grand Marquis and 500.

This is bread and butter territory.

They are right to show concern.

Here are the 05 Rankings

Lexus 139
Porsche 149
Lincoln 151
Buick 163
Cadillac 175
Infiniti 178
Toyota 194
Mercury 195
Honda 201
Acura 203

 

Nearly 3 million recalls in the US this year alone doesn't make for rare quality problems. And that's the number Toyota has nearly passed (if they haven't already).

One of the main reasons I got my Prius was for the Toyota Quality (first being mileage), and I've been somewhat disappointed with that 'quality'. Neither of my past 2 GMs or my old VW have ever died while I've been driving, let alone died twice.

 

Toyota's image is tarnished?.. I don't think so... with cutting edge technology nothing is perfect without oversights and bugs.

I have much more respect for a company that admits a problem and recalls "with a financial loss to themselves none the less" than a company that hides it and denys it until they are finally sued with a class action suit.... The latter seems to be the "american way" these days.

Don't all the lawyers tell you to plead Innocent?.. not matter how bad the guilt?

 

Thats what impressed me.... one recall and Toyota is trying to make it up... that never seems to bother the big three?

 

My 2000 GMC Sierra SLT 4x4 never actually quit on me, except for the AutoTrak 4x4 system. It left me stranded at my old cabin several times in winter as a fault will force the transfer case into 2WD operation. And I'd get stuck on the big hill trying to spin my way out of there.

The mode select switch cluster was replaced 3 times (Once off warranty) and the front driveshaft speed sensor replaced once before they "cured" the AutoTrak problems. Since it would flash "SERVICE 4WD" in scary amber letters at random times, it drove me NUTS.

About 2 weeks into my ownership, I backed out of my garage and noticed a puddle of gear oil on the floor. The rear pinion seal was gone.

Those "drum in hat" parking brakes were the worst offender. If I didn't have them adjusted every 6 months, they'd fail to hold the empty truck on a slight incline. They wore out at around 66,000km - conveniently just off warranty - and cost $480 to fix.

With all the trouble I had with that truck, the attitude problem in the service department didn't help matters at all. They finally told me I was too picky and expected too much. Like I should expect parking brakes to fail to hold after 6 months of use, or a mode select switch cluster to be bad from the manufacturer, or whatever.

I admit I was disappointed when my Prius conked last November in city traffic. And I was pretty nasty with my dealership when I was finally towed in. I'll be the first to also admit I hold Toyota to much higher standards, and they had better deliver.

It doesn't matter if the Prius was $10K cheaper than my GMC pickup, I'd expect the same attention to detail if I had bought a bare-bones $13K Toyota Echo Hatchback. And I will say the dealer and service department bent over backwards to keep me happy.

I'd never buy a Toyota from a chain that started off with domestics. They have no concept whatsoever of "customer service."

 

I was actually more pissed with the salesguy who sold me the Prius than I was with Toyota, at least initially. When I had my car towed in for the first time, and the service dept was closing down and the only loaner they could give me was a Scion with no radio (!), I saw my salesguy on the other side of the glass wall and figured, why not ask him for help. His words were something like "You bought the car, it's your problem now".

Fantastic attitude. 2 years later he still works there.

The second time it died, I was pissed as hell. For 3 weeks I wouldn't drive it in the middle or left lanes on the highways, because I couldn't be sure it was really fixed. After 16 months, I'm pretty sure it's OK now.

But where I am kinda disappointed is the build quality. In a word, it's awful. There are rattles, the fabric (what little fabric there is) is wearing thru, and the headliner is coming down. This is a 26K (#9/US) car? And from what I read, these are not uncommon complaints. While most people here downplay the problems, the fact of the matter is that most people who pay 21-26K for a car really expect it to not rattle and for the fabric to not wear thru within 2 years.

For comparison, look at the Escape hybrid. It's Ford's first hybrid launch. Number of recalls for dying cars? Zero. Number of recalls to insulate components which can get wet and cause electrical shorts? Zero. Number of brake light recalls? One. Tied with the Prius.

And the 3 million recalls... it's bad. You can joke about GM quality a lot, but when you've been passed by 2 GM divisions(not to mention 2 Ford divisions), things aren't good. And my fave Toyota recall is the one overseas (another million vehicles, with more to be possibly added) where a bolt that holds the engine in can fail. Guess what happens then.

In short: Toyota may be expanding too fast. This has happened to many, many companies in the past when they've gotten too big, too fast. And it does take years to recover from. Things may well get worse before they get better.

 

Jayman, you are mistaken about dealership sales and service satisfaction. Toyota sales and service satisfaction have been suffering for years. Toyota is actually well below average in both sales and service satisfaction. The way that the sales and service process is handled has much more to do with the philosophy of the dealer than the manufacturer.

 

I think this is precisely the case. If Toyota sacrifices quality for quantity, then they deserve every bad thing that happens. I'd no sooner beat Toyota's drum than GM's drum.

 

Jayman is located in Canada, and their dealers may be different than ours. But at least in NJ, Toyota does have something of a bad reputation when it comes to a sales experience. The service I've experienced has been pretty good (they don't detail your car like VW does, but ah well)... but the sales staff are sharks.

 

It is entirely possible that my Toyota dealer is the best in North America, and that the GMC Truck dealer where I ordered and serviced my 2000 Sierra was the worst in North America. The truth is somewhere in the middle - as it usually is.

As far as my Sierra, issues like the front driveshaft clunk-clunk, the bad mode select switch clusters, the drum-in-hat parking brake, and the Vortec knock-knock are all known issues. In most cases, nothing is done or the customer is expected to pay for the fix.

The defective tailgate cables are another thing. I had one snap and damn near fell off the back of the truck. Never did receive the "improved" ones.

 

Given 3 million recalls (or thereabouts) in the US, I'd say quality has been sacrificed. Now the question is, how soon can they right the ship?