NHTSA fines Toyota $16.4 M.

Sounds like an expansion of State Farm's lead:

http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-h...unintended-acceleration-insurance-claims.html

 

I wish I shared your optimism, Bob, but I can't. Too much money is at stake. Too many lawyers, "consumer safety" advocates and politicians with axes to grind. Too much jingoism in the press who can only regurgitate press releases from the above parties.

Don't get wrong- I do hope you're right about the beginning of the end. Of course, I think the real "beginning of the end" was in replacement of Mr. Watanabe last summer.

 

And then there are the saints from Ford, who apparently knew they had a problem with their brakes in October 09 when they fixed it: Report: Ford issues TSB fix for brake pedal on Fusion Hybrid models [w/video] — Autoblog Green I wonder when they told NHTSA about this?

 

TSBs aren't the same as safety defects/recalls and therefore don't apply in this case.

Toyota would have also released the Gen III Prius brake issue fix as a TSB if they weren't forced to do a recall because of the surrounding circumstance at the time.

 

So, you read the article concerning the FFH braking problem? It was very unlike the Prius III braking problem. For apparently no reason, the brake pedal sinks toward the floor, the brakes don't significantly slow down the car- no bumps, no nothing. The vehicle coasts to a stop. Ford says they knew about it soon enough that vehicles during the prior 3.5 months don't have the problem. That means they knew they had a problem about four months earlier but did nothing to let their customers know about it.

Sure sounds like a safety defect to me. Of course the "betrayed by Toyota" crowd will disagree. And I'm sure NHTSA noted that the FFH is American-made. Oops. I mean Mexican-made.

 

"Thank you Toyota for being open about what is going on and re-committing to your customers, workers, and stockholders."

Bob Wilson[/QUOTE]


Bob , hate to tell you ..If Toyota was open on what was going on,this fine(A poultry sum) and all the dramatics would be unnecessary . Sounded like a business move from the get go:

"On Sept. 29, Toyota issued repair procedures to their distributors in 31 other countries to address complaints of sticky pedals, but did nothing in the United States until two days after the January meeting" .exposing "millions of American drivers, passengers and pedestrians to the dangers of driving with a defective accelerator pedal .

At the Jan. 19 meeting, Strickland read a document that showed European Toyotas with pedal problems, and turned the page to read complaints about U.S. models.

The difference is, the U.S would of insisted that Toyota issue recalls immediately...The timing of this could of been disastrous to Holiday sales..Where Toyota was looking to rebound on horrible 2008 holiday numbers. With not calling a recall , they had some brisk increase in sales.

Putting off the recalls till Jan. , they ran the risk of taking a hit in the traditional weakest selling months in Jan/ Feb..In which they showed decreases. With the results , a shrewd business move was to run incentives in March,to stop the bleeding. A cost of $2k -$5k per vehicle on 0% financing and lower sticker prices.

Had they made that move in October-December at a period where they sell 50% more cars..It would of cost the company over $500 million in profits.

That dollar amount is owed to all the customers, who bought from October-Jan 18, who didn't have the priviledge of knowing some facts that should of came out. With that knowledge, either deciding not to buy from a company with problems, or at the very least, take advantage of buying on sale like the March 2010 "Loyalists".


I hope that they mean "re-committing to your customers, workers, and stockholders"...By shelling out the $$$$$ to care of them and not boast how you can save money for the company by cutting corners.

We'll see what they will do for us !

​

 

Since first replying to your insistence, I have read more on ford. It appears they were doing a silent fix. This is bad behavior. When someone complained they updated them, but they did not make it public. When consumer reports had the problem, ford went public and did the right thing.

This is quite different than Toyota that denied there was a problem when I brought my car in. Toyota Japan knew there was a problem but kept it from dealerships so that they would not tell customers. When they were asked by the Japanese government about the problem they denied it. Asked again they said it was fixed but wasn't a problem. They they said they didn't know if they were going to fix it because it wasn't a problem. This is very bad behavior relative to ford. If you do not understand this, you must not understand basic corporate responsibility. The problem at toyota was compounded by repeated denials to customers on the cts pedals even though they knew there were problems. Toyota also has engaged in leaks to make the pedal recall look like it really was unnecessary. But you must note, that a SMART team was brought in after a customer brought her vehicle in after a non fix of the pedal and had unintended acceleration. The team found the pedal was defective. In fact we have documents on only 4 pedals that toyota tested and 3 of them were causing unintended acceleration. That is 75%. How many of the other over 3000 reports of unintended acceleration are from defective parts, electronics or software we may never know.

I totally agree. I hope Toyota has learned from their mistake and will take this attitude toward future problems.

Iceman CTS pedals nasty behavior by Toyota. But bob is right, they did do the right thing on the Lexus SUV. I agree that the CTS pedal incident seems to be internal denial especially when the truth would hurt holiday sales, profits, and bonuses. It is exactly the same type of behavior ford engaged in the explorer incident that set up the fine structure. In the case of the Lexus SUV toyota acted in a timely manner.

 

Though I wouldn't personally feel it, I understand why people might feel they deserve compensation. But the most reasonable remedy, IMO, is for Toyota to buy vehicles back at full purchase price (including taxes/fees etc), unless specific damages could be attributed to the defect in that time frame (don't know if anything fits this criteria). Handing out money because someone bought a car in a specific time frame makes little sense, especially if they were planning to keep the car in spite of all the developments.

The change in pricing is irrelevant. Without a specific price matching policy or other applicable regulation, you do not suffer a loss when something changes price. That's a pretty basic tenet of our commerce system.

 

I liked most of your post , up to:

"Handing out money because someone bought a car in a specific time frame makes little sense, especially if they were planning to keep the car in spite of all the developments.

The change in pricing is irrelevant. Without a specific price matching policy or other applicable regulation, you do not suffer a loss when something changes price. That's a pretty basic tenet of our commerce system."

If you say you understood the premise on why people deserve re-compensation and say that Toyota should buy back at the full paid price. Then why can't you understand that 35k at 4.9% financing(Today is: 0% financing, 36-60 months, 2 year free maintenance) in October or 35K in your bank at 3.5% interest for a 3 year CD, amounts to $3k- $5 k, in each customers pocket as opposed to being in Toyota's pocket. Today's car prices reflect that, they reflect that because their sales plummeted when they sold w/o customer incentives and would continue to plummet w/o customer incentives.

I would also assume that Toyota would prefer to give 10% back to each customer(During the term I raised), then buying the car back at 10% higher their current selling rate. Then sell the car for 20% less, since the car is used(Would you buy a new car or a car with 2k miles on it, for the same price?).

Lastly, since each customer from March till now is given an opportunity to buy a Toyota cheaper, a savings of $2k-$5k in cost and financing ,why wouldn't you offer the same deal to those who were kept in the dark in Sept. ?...Seems to me, if you give a full refund and don't allow the customer to buy the same car at today's rate( I assure you, today's rate is not due Toyota's choosing but rather to counteract customer perception), it will only guarantee one thing, that customer will never buy Toyota again and they will lose the other 1/2 of the car's profits.

Here is a remedy from a classy organization, who knew it wasn't fair, when their customers paid early, at higher prices and how they chose to retain their customers, instead of choosing to pocket the extra revenue and profit. Different scenarios, but what I say should be the same remedy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/sports/baseball/29tickets.html

 

This is essentially a "Rent A Toyota For Free!" plan. It would make economic sense for nearly all eligible customers, even those perfectly happy with their cars, to take the offer, reducing their depreciation expense for that period to $0. Especially if they can turn around and buy a replacement at depressed prices.

Absent any damages other than lost value, such a buyback plan really needs to include a prorated discount consistent with the time or distance the car was used.