Oh the Irony of it All... The Pulitzer Prize Story that the LA Times DIDN'T Get

That is not Karma.
I was hoping to read an expose of the Toyota witch hunt that did win a Pulitzer.

 

Schadenfreude:


Bob Wilson

 

Beautiful depiction of stubbornness

 

i guess none of the gm crashes were spectacular enough, or didn't involve a chip?

 

LA Times was not trying very hard. But the NY Times picked up the story:

Toyota was involved a scandal that spanned ten years (circa 1998 to 2008). No customers died but they did get stuck with a $7000 engine replacement bill when Toyota voided warranty (even with proof oil was changed regularly). No brand-new car should have a dead engine after only 15-30,000 miles but it kept happening again-and-again affecting 1 million customers.

It took the action of several states and the federal government for Toyota to obey the law & reinstate those illegally-voided warranties.

"Toyota knew they had a defect and didn't want to admit," choosing to blame the customer instead, said the Better Business Bureau. (Extremely very Poor customer service.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/automobiles/04SLUDGE.html

 

bitterness can ruin your life.

 

Not sure if the book is closed on this thing yet as far as the GM ignition issue goes. Really, there have been deaths and the company has known about the problem for years.... surely even in an unfair world there has to be a greater level of accountability and fairness in both reporting and legal consequences.

Roland

 

What if...

GM gets sued and has to pay...

A new bailout, more $$ from US citizens?

 

too big to fail...

 

I think that is true if you are talking specifically about that report and those specific set of accusations. But that is NOT my memory of how Toyota initially responded through most of this time period.

I was frustrated by how passive and I don't want to offend anyone..."Japanese" Toyota seemed to be in their reaction during this entire period. There were daily apologies,-- Yes for offenses and accusations that IMO were not proved. Toyota's reaction was almost like they had been "dishonored" by the accusations themselves, and that somehow they had to show shame.

Infact during that time period I seem to remember The Prius winning a big award..."like" North American Car of the Year"...or something like that...and Toyota refusing to accept it, because of the publicity and problems.

Through that whole time period, I felt Toyota acted like a company based on it's Japanese ownership and culture. And sometimes, I wanted them to act more like an American Company...and fire back with more aggression.

 

I think that is exactly right.

I remember when a Toyota exec (I think the CEO) apologized to the US Congress. The American media interpreted the apology as admission that a braking defect existed when in fact the exec meant nothing of the sort. He was just apologizing for the fact that the accusation existed at all.

I would also point out that xenophobia in America is only a skin scratch away. Japanese car companies are very practical in being extremely diplomatic in this country. Had Toyota called out the involved UA drivers as fraudsters, knee-jerk patriotism would have kicked into high gear, driven in no small part by politicians and Detroit with invested interests.

 

All right. I got it: GM was having fun killing people with bad ignition switches. Right. The LA Times missed that one.

Next: Priuses never did run-away acceleration or had problems with brakes. If the LA Times went after that, then they were nuts, and/or taken by that con man who rode the brakes while trying to accelerate at the same time.. And failed.

However: There really was a cover-up by Toyota on Camrys and the like: Runaway cars, cars that wouldn't stop, and dead people all over.
Toyota vociferously claimed that it was driver error, idiots with floor mats, and pushed back.
NASA got involved and inspected the engine controllers. They didn't find any smoking guns, and said so.
The NHTSA stood up. Then they sat down, mumbling madly about old farts who couldn't tell the difference between an accelerator and a brake pedal. (They're right about that.. some of the time.)
The whole thing quieted down.
And then, last year, we find out from that lawsuit in middle America that:

1. There were runaway Toyotas. For real. Bad engine controller design and horrible engine controller software.
2. Toyota had lied to NASA about certain critical characteristics of the engine controller - then blacked out their lies in the final report. It wasn't inadvertent - the lawyers knew.
3. That whistleblower from Israel who had been translating Toyota documents showed proof that Toyota had seen unintended acceleration - on a Prince of Japan's car! Ahem - that didn't hit the news.

If the LA Times said, at that time, that Toyota was involved in a cover-up, they were right. It wasn't with Priuses, but with a whole bunch of their other cars, likely including that cop who got killed in LA.

So what are you going on about, anyway?

KBeck

 

the cop was from an aftermarket winter mats on top of summer mats, iirc.

 

^^ DeadPhish, spot on rebuttal

I disagree about the NYT article though. Low frequency defects are difficult to find amidst all the noise. That won't stop a witch hunt of course.

 

unfortunately, according to the wsj, gm's liability maybe somewhat limited by the bankruptsy agreement.

 

Yep. No doubt the reason why GM is so quick to admit why the 'other' GM was such a turd.

I can only hope that the court of public opinion gets rid of that miserable company once and for all.