Toyota's high reputation

Were doing fine? By what measure? does the economist think the banking system is "just fine" too? Our trade situation with China is we give then $5 and they give us $1, those are the facts. The trade situation with Japan is we give them $2 and they give us $1, and that situation has been going on for almost two generations. Is it any wonder that the Us is broke?
Remember that when the grim reaper of economics taps you or someone in your family on the shoulder and hands you a pink slip, it is coming if it has not already.

 

You obviously have had a bad experience with a bad product and poor service from a dealership. However, your experience is only relevant to your truck and your dealership. While I can understand why you wouldn't want to purchase another product from that GM dealership or even from GM it doesn't mean that all GM products are of poor quality or that all GM dealerships have poor service. Too many people here on PriusChat make broad statements that imply that current product made by GM or Ford are inferior products.

All manufacturers have bad dealerships. Ask around and you can find someone that has had a bad experience with just about any brand of dealership. That doesn't mean that others will have the same experience at a different dealership. It actually sounds like you where put off GM products by the dealership experience rather that the poor product itself.

All manufacturers have well know problems that they deny and ignore:

• GM has said that consuming 1 quart / 500 miles is normal for a Vortec engine
• Ford denies that spark plugs spontaneously popping out of 4.6L Mustang and F-150 engine is their problem
• Toyota denies that they had problems with oil sludge.
• ETC, etc, etc.

From the class action lawsuit filed over the Toyota sludge problem, I would bet their are plenty of former Toyota owners that won't be shopping at their local Toyota dealership anymore.

Antidotal evidence from individual ownership experience is very important to that individual but not really statistically relevant to the rest of us. I had a 1991 Chevy Cavalier Wagon that ran flawlessly for 10 years and 100,000 miles until a quicky lube only put 1/2 the required oil in it. That doesn't mean that the current Cobalt is a good or bad car.

From looking at statistical data from JD Powers and others there no longer is much of a difference in vehicle quality for the majority of automobile brands. I shop based on price and features.

 

The combination of a hunk of s*** product and a bastard of a dealership sealed GM's fate, at least in my mind

Whether Toyota, GM, et al, they had better realize that word-of-mouth can make or break them. If the majority of Toyota dealerships are outright crooks and liers, with my Toyota dealership a shining star, then Toyota is in trouble

Much like how I'm fairly certain I cost GM Canada hundreds of thousands of dollars in bad word-of-mouth "advertising" that I did for free

Thing is, in many ways, I LIKED the concept of my GMC Sierra SLT. It had seats that were light years better than my Prius or FJ. I liked how I could, Ig-Off, push and hold the odometer button to retrieve engine hours in the display

The radio had speed compensated volume that you could adjust with a simple turn ring, and it worked very well.

It just really burned me how the package was put together very indifferently, had high failure rates, and a dealership that simply didn't give one rat's a** if I had trouble or not. That can also be extended to GM Canada as well

 

Buy whatever car you think has good value of your money.
Though I found eco imports (esp Toyota/Honda) always have better residual value compare to domestic, which factored into my buying decision too.

 

The more times I read this article or blog or wahtever it is, the more upset I get. It is just propoganda or spin, I would love to know the origin of the article. I should have figured, a professor. In 1958 28% of the US work force was involved in manufacturing and today it is 8%, somehow this has benefitted the USA. The manufacturing is still being done, it is just being done in other countries. That is the only stat you need to understand why real wages have been falling for years.

 

All the major corps, and the government, not only allowed this to happen, but encouraged this to happen. Please don't tell us that large corporations are like all-knowing, all-wise benevolent gods

Whether Sony, GE, GM, Toyota, BMW, etc, they are only interested in one thing: making money, ideally for the board of directors, and if anything is left over then for the shareholders

No large corp gives one rats a** about you and I

However, if a large corp is run up onto the rocks, I like to know who was Captain - eg CEO and Board of Directors - when the ship foundered. Not too often a Captain blames the previous crew and Captain for running a ship up onto a reef, they have to take responsibility

 

I don't know about the GM problem cited above so I won't comment. However I'd like to comment on the Ford and Toyota issues:

Ford continues to deny that the older-design modular V8 has a problem although subsequent model years have cylinder heads with additional spark plug threads for greater strength. Once the 3 year/36K mile warranty has expired, the owner is on his/her own.

Toyota on the other hand, agreed to provide an extended engine warranty for eight years from the date of sale, no mileage limitation, as long as the owner can demonstrate "reasonable efforts" to maintain the vehicle.
http://oilgelsettlement.com/summary_notice.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/automobiles/04SLUDGE.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Consider the old Explorer flip-over issue. For a while you could see negative stories about this seemingly every other day in the newspaper and national news programs. Ford's response was to send a decal to owners which increased the recommended tire pressures, and to recall Firestone ATX Radial tires, although by the time of the recall most vehicles no longer had those tires installed. This is their response to fix a vehicle that was one of Ford's highest volume products. What they might have done instead is re-engineer the suspension to lower the center of gravity - but that probably would cost too much money, right?

I own a Highlander Hybrid. A few weeks ago I received a recall notice to replace the electric steering gear assembly. The concern is that when the wheel is turned full left or full right, steering assist may diminish. The retail price of this repair is around $1,700 as five hours of labor are required while the steering gear assembly cost $1,200. Note that there have been no accidents reported due to this issue, no adverse press, and yet Toyota saw fit to issue this recall to hybrid Highlander, Camry, and Lexus owners.

In the future, which would you entrust your life and the lives of your family to: a Ford vehicle, or a Toyota vehicle? Which company do you think cares more about its vehicles and customers?

To me the answer is obvious, and that is why I now buy Toyota vehicles. And, this helps to demonstrate why Toyota's reputation has a very high rank as cited in the OP.

 

ya know, i have to agree with Toyota simply providing better Customer Service. my Dad bought a Cressida (the precursor to the Lexus line) back in like 1989-1990'ish or so.

it came with a prepaid warantee for first 3 years, so all oil changes, checkups etc. were included. now i dont remember the details, but he did not get the extended warantee (if they offered it back then) and about a year after the basic warantee expired, a major repair came up (think it was tranny issues, but not sure all i remember it was EXPENSIVE). well, very little negotiation, the dealer (yes dealer, so Toyota only slightly involved) agreed to pay 60% of the cost of the repair saving my Dad a couple grand.

so anyway, a little background on my dad, born and raised in Michigan. at one time, 60% of the family worked either for GM or Ford. (currently still have about 25% working primarily for Ford)... so he was a die-hard american car owner for decades.

well, he bought a GM pickup. had one issue after another. final straw was a tranny problem that happened while under warantee. unlike his experience with Toyota who basically offered him a deal with barely a discussion. he argued with GM for weeks, had limited use of the vehicle (it ran, but its performance declined daily causing him to park it a lot to keep from getting stranded)

well, after several weeks, the dealership finally fixed it but only because it no longer ran. he had driven it off and on for about 3 months while contacting the dealer about 2 dozen times to advise them of the issues. he ended up paying a towing bill to return the truck to the dealer (money he never got back)

well the repair job started to fail within 3 months. so my dad took it to an independent tranny shop, got it fixed for a mere $2500 and then immediately sold it. it was less than 2 years old and had about 20,000 miles on it. that was the last GM he ever owned

**edit**

sorry had to add this in. over the years, we have owned a TON of excellent GM vehicles, we had a Suburban that was essentially bullet proof. it ran forever, never had an issue other than the famous 4 barrel lag, but unless you wanted to get 6 miles per gallon, you tried not to engage it. what it really comes down to is the dealer experience which is controlled in a major way by GM corporate policy on wuaranttee issues.

 

Well, it certainly affected MY perception of GM "quality"

 

That Rochester carb was the source of that lag/stumble. You really had to play around with the primary and secondary metering rods/hangers to get them dialed in just right

I am in the process of getting a 1967 Chevy C10 body and frame, no drivetrain. All the drivetrain components will be crate, I'm not going to get frustrated trying to rebuild something

Eg: Dynatrac Pro 60 rear with 4.10's and a Detroit Locker, GM drum brakes; 350 crate motor, TH400 crate transmission from TCI, etc

The carb is going to be an Edelbrock 4 barrel. No way I'm going to dink around with zillions of different jet sizes on a Holley, or pull out whats left of my hair dealing with Rochester metering rods and hanger calibration

Your Suburban would never have gotten better fuel economy with a Edelbrock carb, but that stumble/sag would have been cured

Another good reason to avoid a Holley: the primary and secondary float bowls are separate. If you rarely floor it, when you finally do kick it, nothing will happen as the gas in the secondary would have gone stale and gummed up everything

 

I have something positive to say about older GM products: While a college and graduate student in California, I owned a used 1969 Chevy Nova (red body and black vinyl top) with 250 CID inline 6 and three-speed automatic which I drove from 1972 to 1976. That car was quite reliable and ran well, the only problems were a leaky oil pressure sensor and a rusty exhaust system - which were both easily and inexpensively fixed. That was the only GM vehicle that I have owned.

 

Patrick,

Toyota did not agree to an 8 year extended engine warranty out of the goodness of their heart. They settled a class action lawsuit. From your link:

"A nationwide settlement has been reached in a class action lawsuit about whether certain Toyota and Lexus vehicles are predisposed to develop oil gel. The settlement continues and enhances a Toyota/Lexus Customer Support Program and allows people who had claims that were denied to submit them to a neutral third party evaluator."

Ford could have redesigned the Explorer's suspension to reduce the center of gravity but then it wouldn't have much use as an SUV. SUV's are designed for travel off-road. The design intent has trade-offs for on-road use. People that don't travel off-road shouldn't buy SUV's and then expect them to perform like cars.

The issue was tire inflation and a batch of bad tires. Owners are responsible for maintaining their vehicles. I take issue with people that don't keep their tires inflated and then complain about the effects of their neglect. (BTW, my mother still had her Firestone tires installed and we had another set that were installed on a Ranger. We got two new sets of tires complements of Ford Motor Company.)

I entrust my family's safety to myself. Again, the Firestone thing was not a safety factor as long as a owner properly maintained their vehicle. I don't think Ford, Toyota, or any other auto manufacturer cares about me. Corporations care about profits not people.

 

Hi JSH,

Please look at the second sentence of the quotation that you cited. Toyota had already established a Customer Support Program in 2002 to help owners who were affected by the oil sludge problem. This was done prior to the resolution of the litigation in early 2007.

By the way, I think that the oil sludge problem was primarily due to owner negligence and that Toyota went beyond the call of duty by offering an eight year unlimited mile warranty. If oil changes had been done at 7,500 mile or six month intervals, that sludge would not develop. I've attached a photo of my 2001's valvetrain taken at around 60K miles. Castrol GTX mineral (not synthetic) oil was used and 7,500 mile changes were observed.

Instead of discussing whether a given corporation "cares" or not, let's examine the actions that a corporation takes as those are easy to verify. No need to argue about facts.

If actions taken demonstrate that a corporation goes well beyond the minimum in standing behind its products and ensuring customer satisfaction, then that works well for me. That demonstrates "caring" as far as I am concerned, and encourages me to continue to buy products from that company.

In the case of Toyota, I cited a very recent example where the company issued an SSC (aka recall) on hybrid Highlanders, Camry, and Lexus RX vehicles for the electric steering gear, which is a reasonably expensive service procedure. This happened although I have not seen complaints from Internet posters or news stories, etc.

Consider the alternatives. Toyota could have:

1. said nothing, repaired warranty failures as they occur, and told customers out of warranty that the failure is at the customer's expense. (This is the Ford approach demonstrated by the modular V8 spark plug issue which is a safety hazard since the fuel line could break when the spark plug and spark coil shoot out.)

2. implemented a secret extended warranty, where failures out of warranty would be repaired at no expense. The benefit of this is increased customer satisfaction compared to alternative #1, and reduced cost compared to a general recall.

3. implemented a publicized extended warranty. The cost of this will be higher than #2 but customer satisfaction should also be higher.

Instead, Toyota went to the effort to reach out to the entire affected customer base and encourage all owners to have their steering gear replaced now even if no symptoms currently exist, at a time when they've just announced their first operating loss in history, etc. This is one example that demonstrates that Toyota management is motivated to "do the right thing" when a safety issue is involved.

If you've monitored Prius Chat technical discussions, you may have noticed that when Prius reliability issues come up, Toyota has usually been pretty liberal when it comes to providing post-warranty repair assistance. This also shows their willingness to go beyond the strict letter of what the warranty requires.

So, does Toyota care about profits? Yes, but their management view is long-term so they try to build lasting relationships with their customers.

Do they care about their customers? We can't determine what they are thinking, we can only assess their actions. However, their corporate actions generally seem to demonstrate a high level of care.

Back to Explorer rollovers for a moment. I agree that the driver is primarily responsible to ensure vehicle maintenance. However visualize a situation where your family member is driving an Explorer late at night. It has good tires installed, plenty of tread, and properly inflated. Unknown to the driver, a pickup truck ahead just dropped a few metal castings on the road, dark colored. S/he doesn't see the castings in the headlight beams, and the right rear tire hits one and explodes. We know that the Explorer is unstable when a rear tire suddenly deflates.

Can you see that through no fault of the driver, an Explorer might end up in a situation where it could flip over?

(For fun, I've attached a few photos of my 2007 Explorer taken just before I sold it to an unsuspecting college student.)

 

The sludge problem was for 1997 to 2002 model years. In 2002, Toyota was already 6-7 years into this problem and facing bad press and a class action suit. This is not a case of Toyota being proactive.

Toyota issued a SSC for your steering gear because it is a critical safety issue. If even a couple cars had a failure that resulted in an injury or death Toyota would have been facing a lawsuit and very public recall. They issued a SSC to get the parts replaced ASAP and reduce their exposure to litigation.

 

The spark plug problem for Ford is like the sludge problem for Toyota. They both went to the edge (and beyond) of what was good design and it cost them because the human factor.

Most Toyota's would not sludge up if they had their oil changed more often but indeed Toyota did have smaller areas for oil to pass through in its engines then other cars did (on average). This meant they were more susceptible to sludge from differed maintenance.

Most of the Fords with popping plugs are for owners that changed their own plugs or had sloppy shops not using the right torque. Of course if Ford had put a little more metal in there the problem would be less likely to happen even with sloppy work.

 

I do not agree with this, as many complaints came from owners who had not logged sufficient miles for the original equipment spark plugs to have been replaced:
Consumer complaints about Ford Engines - Spark Plug Defect

The "good" news is that a thriving tool market seems to have emerged in response to this:
Ford Spark Plug Blow Out Problems How to Repair | Tech Articles
Spark Plug Thread Repair Inserts

I have very low miles on my Mustang, but decided to replace the spark plugs after learning about this a couple of years ago. The original equipment plugs had a black painted finish and the threads had rusted. IIRC there were 4 threads on the spark plug shell. The correct Autolite replacement plugs sold by my local Ford dealer have more threads on the shell which is plated, not painted; so hopefully they will be resistant to corrosion and stay put. I used a dab of antiseize lube on each plug, and torqued the plugs to spec.

 

Interesting article on Toyota. I will copy the whole article on here. Most PCers probably are not subscribers to automotive news.

TOKYO -- Toyota Motor Corp. is famed for its advance planning, obsessive attention to "what if" scenarios and continuous improvement.
Yet with the market collapsing, the world's top automaker is stunned to a near standstill by an astonishing plunge from record profits to record losses in 12 short months.
Rivals Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. have trotted out sweeping recovery plans to cancel product programs, idle factories, slash pay and cut jobs. In Nissan's case, the blueprint is so detailed that it even targets savings by suspending corporate baseball and table tennis clubs.
In what Toyota has announced so far, "there were no new developments that sounded remotely innovative," JPMorgan auto analyst Takaki Nakanishi wrote after Toyota warned in February that its full-year operating loss would be ¥450 billion ($4.59 billion) -- nearly triple the red ink it had forecast only six weeks earlier.
Just months before family scion Akio Toyoda takes over as president in June, Toyota is singing the same strained refrain as last summer: Keep cutting costs; keep cutting production.
Toyota's plan, so far
Toyota's revival plan focuses narrowly on cost cuts. It says it is
• Reviewing products for cost cuts
• Slashing $5.11 billion in fixed costs by next year
• Lowering labor costs through reduced hours, pay freezes, voluntary retirements
• Canceling or delaying new plants

Slow start
The massive global recession requires swift changes, but Toyota's culture is built for slow, organic change. Moreover, many important decisions probably are waiting until Akio Toyoda takes over, but that's not for another three months.
"The company has not made any attempt to address the core strategic elements of production structure realignment or its product, regional and platform profile," Nakanishi said.
By comparison, Nissan is dumping 12 new models that had been planned for the next five years. It also plans more production abroad to counter the effects of the soaring yen.
Honda says it may follow, even moving r&d centers to less costly locales. And Honda has axed its cherished NSX sports car and Formula One racing programs.
Toyota has yet to scrap models publicly, even in its arguably overstocked home market.
Export problems
Toyota's Japan production is lopsided toward exports, making it especially vulnerable to foreign-exchange swings. Yet it hasn't announced major changes on that front either.
Last year Toyota exported 64.5 percent of the cars it made in Japan. And the export ratio has increased steadily from less than half in the past decade.
Toyota invested at home when the yen was cheap. But in January the yen hit a 13-year high. The strong currency is expected to lop $9.09 billion off the company's annual operating profit in the current fiscal year.
"Exports are an unaffordable luxury now," said Christopher Richter, an analyst at CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets. Toyota should close plants at home and move volume overseas, he said.
"The time to fix it is now when you have all of your factories in the world operating under capacity," Richter said. Toyota could boost profits by slashing its ratio of imported cars in America to 9 percent, from a current level of 45 percent, with minimal investment, he estimated.
Executives acknowledge that they were myopic during Toyota's surge to the top.
"As the business expanded, there may be certain issues we didn't pay enough attention to," said Executive Vice President Mitsuo Kinoshita on Feb. 6 while announcing earnings.
Cost cuts
Kinoshita unveiled plans to cut $5.11 billion in fixed costs by next year.
That's hardly chump change, and the goal has triggered a mood of crisis. Workers are carpooling on business trips instead of taking trains.
Offices are going lights-out at lunch. Employees are using stairs, instead of elevators, to save electricity.
Yet some analysts had hoped for more drastic cuts of up to $7.15 billion.
In some ways Toyota is a hostage of its reputation for providing lifetime employment. It simply can't cut 20,000 jobs, as Nissan plans to. Even in the United States, it sidesteps layoffs.
For the first five weeks of 2009, Toyota's North American output was down 59 percent. In February, it finally announced a campaign to lower labor costs. It called for a wage freeze, a cut of hours and a voluntary exit program.
Waiting for Akio
Akio Toyoda has pledged to be "as bold as possible in pushing ahead with reforms."
The problem is that he's not president yet. And current President Katsuaki Watanabe is unlikely to announce major overhauls before the changeover, for a couple of reasons.
First, the current boss doesn't want to saddle the next one with any policies that may backfire. Second, he doesn't want to steal Toyoda's thunder as leader of the company's comeback.
As cautious as Toyota's approach is, there are signs that change is afoot.
In late February, the company said it is bringing back Yoshi Inaba, 62, the former U.S. sales chief who left the automaker to run an airport. He will join Toyoda's administration in June and oversee North American projects. The company hasn't given details.
A few days later, Toyoda pushed aside three executive vice presidents who had led the company through its rapid expansion - including Kinoshita, who will retire in June.
Of the previous executive vice presidents, only Takeshi Uchiyamada, father of the Prius, will remain. According to published reports, Toyoda tapped the new team for its strength in sales and production.
Look for more dramatic changes when Toyoda takes the wheel. "That's why Akio Toyoda has been chosen to be president," Richter said. "He's been brought on board as somebody who can make controversial moves, and nobody will do an end run around him."

 

An organization heavily focused on advanced planning may have a tougher time reacting to sudden change.

As an example from ordinary life, take my wife's car keys. She loses her car keys so often that it's no big deal when they are missing. Searching for lost keys is a normal part of her routine.

In contrast, my car keys are either in my pocket or on my bedside table. If they aren't in either of these places, I find myself gripped with inaction. If they aren't there, they could be anyplace. If they could be anyplace, where do I even start looking? I just stand there and look at the table in disbelief.

Big companies work like that too.

Tom