utoblog: Consumer Reports says Toyota owner loyalty waning

My leadership training said confidence is hard to achieve and easy to lose. It won't turn around instantly, no doubt about that, but how did Toyota achieve dominance in the past ... sustained performance.

There aren't many people who have looked at Prius fatality rates but I have. My engineering background lets me identify not only the facts and data but another set of problems called, "Electro-political." One lesson learned is every organization is at risk of being 'captured' by penny-wise but pound foolish MBAs. IMHO, Toyota has had to take a dose of that bitter medicine ... something GM had been suffering from with the last of their old management.

Jack Welch of GE fame proved that the way to make a small fortune 500 company is to start with a large fortune 500 company. The initial sweet taste of cost savings are long forgotten in the bitterness of poor quality. This is Toyota's turn.

Our family has 100% of our Toyota vehicle needs. Toyota USA does not sell in the USA the type of van-hybrid, the Estima, sold for the past five years in Japan and have NO PLANS TO DO SO. So we'll live with a rusting hulk of a GM G30 based, Coachman RV sitting next to our 2003 and 2010 Prius. The legacy of the Toyota's "bean counters" is the absence of a hybrid mini-van in North America.

Bob Wilson

ps. Consumer Reports decided not to send us a car survey ... after we were so positive on Toyota last year before we bought our 2010 Prius. Fancy that!