Toyota Fretting Over Quality

I know what I'm getting ready to say will risk folks saying I'm just being judgemental.

I've never owned a foreign car yet, but I"m on order for the prius 06.
One thing that blew me away is how a car that has so much off the map cutting edge technology is so much more reliable with a better warranty than the present day domestic cars that have no major changes going on, yet their warrany is whimpy and reliability is much worse?

There are two modes of thinking that prevails in todays world of business.
1. Image!!! protect image at all cost!.... even if it means hide errors and cover up imperfections and attempt to promote peer group acceptance to the product so it will be accepted irregardless of the pitfalls.... and if something happens to your rig, they impress the idea that yours is an isolated case and hide any other similiar cases so as not to imply a factory error.
2. Quality and pride, even at the expense of image! attempt to protect the integrety of the product quality even if it means a financial loss and possible smear of image in the communities eyes. Realizing that their product is a reflection of thier character, they protect it as if it is their character!

Big difference!..... #1 applies principles of weakness, playing catchup to look as good as, insecurity, and laziness, only doing better only if necessary to keep up and not lose out! Although building a good product is desired, unwilling to pay the price to do something really impressive, profit rules and nothing happens at the expense of not impressing the stockholders!

#2 applies principles of strength and self confidence.... if anything breaks or goes wrong, Toyota is just as mad at the error as the customer, so they do whatever it takes to make it right! They are not afraid of hard work and earning thier money for what they charge. They delight in excelling and doing more than expected! They take pride in being the best and doing it right! Although a profit is in mind, pride that they have built an awesome product is thier first reward!
Toyotas motto is "moving forward"
Maybe I'm bias here... especially since I don't yet own a prius, but is their anybody that owns a prius that disagrees with my take?

 

I suggest you google for "Camry sludge issue" and read about how "mad" toyota was about the sludge issue and how they did whatever it takes to make it right. Where wherever it was to make it right equaled telling the customer to go to hell. It took the specter of a class action lawsuit to get them to change their tune.

 

Jayman, how many miles were on the vehicle when it was turned into customer pay instead of warranty?

 

The sludge issue is huge. It was handled at the beginning very poorly by Toyota. I still know of folks who are having a hell of a time getting Toyota to stand behind their engines.

 

sludge was mainly a customer neglect issue, and is not a good example

 

That is how Toyota passed it off originally. The problem was not a customer neglect issue relative to other vehicles. The same oil change intervals in other models did NOT result in engine problems. I am amazed at how much slack has been cut to Toyota on this issue. If it was GM, today it would be on the fornt of USA today and headlining the evening news.

 

If that were the case, which it is not, why did Toyota:

* Make a change to the engine which allows oil to drain faster into the sump, thereby preventing oil from sitting around and turning into sludge (and I have no idea how that's a neglect issue, but that's just me).
* Agree to pay for all sludge related repairs
* Cover repairs on used vehicles
* Cover repairs on vehicles regardless of mileage (Hrm, could it be because the sludge was actually their fault? Ding!)

Mind you, the sludge issue happened no matter what. Change your oil and filter at the recommended intervals and you could still end up with sludge. Toyota admitted it.

 

The parking brakes were customer pay beyond 12 months "adjustment period." They refused to adjust them for free after that, so they called it a "brake inspection" and charged me $80.

The mode select switch cluster failures were covered until 2004 when it failed again, around $180 if I recall.

The Vortec knocking and oil burning at first I was promised a fix. Then they showed me that infamous TSB that claimed it was "normal." I suggest you look at the following URL for more details:

http://www.pistonslap.com

I was able to hide most of the knocking in summer by running either Mobil 1 15W-50 or Mobil Delvac 1 5W-40. When I used Mobil 1 0W-30 in cold winter it knocked like an old diesel.

The front driveshaft clunk-clunk first happened in 2003 while there was still some warranty left. They claimed it was "abuse/lack of maintenance" and not covered, they also wanted $550 to replace it.

SHow me where in the manual there is any discussion of lubing the front driveshaft. That piece of s*** didn't even have zerks on it, how the hell could I lube it. I ended up trolling some GM forums and learned about other folks having the same problem.

I finally used my shop manual to take off the front driveshaft, lube the splines, and put it back on. Clunk-clunk went away.

Oh, and when I was standing on the tailgate at the hobby farm and the one cable snapped, and I damn near fell off the back of the truck and took out my back? They claimed I was NOT supposed to stand on the lowered tailgate, it was NOT meant to take that sort of weight.

I weigh 170 lbs soaking wet. And when got the recall notice about the tailgate cables, I never did receive them. The same a**hole at the GMC Truck service bay who told me I was too heavy for the cables then claimed they were "backordered."

Remember the 2000 GMC Sierra new vehicle warranty was only for 3 years or 60,000km/36,000mi. It was a lot of bulls*** to go through for a truck that cost me $39K Cdn, or MSRP of $45K.

 

I apologize for your experience with the GMC. It sounds to me like much of your disatisfaction emanated from the dealer and the way they handled your problems. The dealer had the flexibility to policy any problem with proper documentation up to 5 years and 50,000 miles. Today that has been expanded up to 6 years and 60,000 miles. Most of your problems are not isolated problems and thus should have been taken care of under the warranty. The tailgate was eventually recalled.

 

Brand is a distraction. It's the same company making all of them. The difference in brand performance just shows that Toyota's small quality slip happens to be in particular vehicles. They're still the #1 manufacturer, as you mention.

I was talking about Toyota the company, not Toyota the brand. And I'm sure they have some models of car that are (comparatively) sucky, even compared to (say) Ford.

 

there was plenty of coverage on it. I think your problem is they didn't keep the story going ad nauseam. well, sorry, but Toyota simply does screw up as often as GM does.

 

Considering the problem affects vehicles produced from '96-'01, yeah, they screwed up for a long time. And considering that they have 3 million recalls this year... you're right, they haven't screwed up as often as GM has this year... they've screwed up more.

 

could you list those recalls and gms?

thanks

 

The source is Toyota's recall #s, which are listed in the article. Period. The numbers are what they are, and they're not good.

And keep in mind, that this won't be fixed overnight. And those JD Power initial quality surveys that Toyota is slipping in... what happens 3 years down the road when those owners are given followup surveys? Think the quality is going to go up?

It's good Toyota is aware and concerned. They need to be. Lexus may be doing well, but as someone else mentioned earlier Toyota (Camry and Avalon) is the bread and butter, and they can't afford to have that slip the way it has.

 

Although I have stated I am only now educating myself to Toyotas excellence and am impressed enough to buy thier prius, this does make for interesting reading..

I did what you suggested and the third from the top was this http://www.synlube.com/sludge.htm
This is a problem that was quite a while ago in 2000 - 2001 and I don't know if the same powers at play are in authority now. That was the infancy of the prius age.

It was a time that was very confusing as to what was actually causing the problems.
I personally remember "Penzoil" was a big no no to use.

It shows how this was not a problem isolated to Toyota as it appears to also be a problem to many other cars as follows:

The other cars also affected with oil sludge problems:
1998-2002 Chrysler
1998-2002 Dodge Dakota
1998-2002 Dodge Stratus
1998-2002 Dodge Intrepid1997
2004 Volkswagen (VW) 1.8t
1997-2004 Audi A4 1.8t
1998-2004 Volkswagen Passat 1.8t
1998-2003 SAAB 2.0- and 2.3-liter 4-cylinders in some cars

I suppose if I was an honest car manufacturer and I had some problems, I would be very suspicious as to not accept the full blame when many other unrelated manufacturers are also having the exact same problem?

It tends to make you think that the problem is something in common between them all, yet not specific to any one?

Its just mathmatics, addtion and subtraction.

If I was CEO over Toyota at the time.. I would not have accepted blame either.
If fact, it may be that toyota finally accepted more blame than was warranted, if that be the case, they are more nobel than I, I would have fought it.

The Oil sludge built up under the oil cap even, and was in other rigs too?... how can that be a manufacter problem?.. It sounds more like an oil company problem?

Thanks for the good reading.. it was quite interesting!

At this site: http://forums.autoweek.com/thread.jspa?for...9155&tstart=135
Here it speaks for itself as I quote:
Second, Toyotas "special policy adjustment" only
>

Its very interesting that all the problems started at 1997 with many different manufacturers?

 

If that is in fact the case...

* Why did Toyota change their engine design?
* Why are they paying for repairs over a 6 year period ('96 - '01)
* Why didn't it happen with their 4 cylinder models?

 

all i know is my own personal experience. recalls aside, i had a buick that had gone thru 3 transmissions and was totally worn out after 6 years. i bought a toyota and it was never recalled for anything and lasted 19 years. the only failure i ever had was a timing belt, and with almost 200,000 miles you'd probably expect one of those to break.

 

Based on that bad dealership experience, I really went out of my way making sure they lost customers. Sometimes I'd be over there waiting for the "routine" parking brake adjustment, see somebody looking at new trucks in the lot, and scurry out to them. I'd warn them about the lousy service and more often than not, they'd drive away.

So I wonder how much my badmouthing - based on my bad service experience and a lemon truck - cost GM? I'm GM's worst enemy, a disgruntled owner.

I was really pissed when my Prius conked on me last November. They could see the fire in my eyes when I got out of the tow truck. But they also bent over backwards to calm me down and make things right.

The fact the dealership owner took the Ford Focus that was supposed to be my loaner, and gave me the keys to his Avalon XLS demonstrator, is perhaps proof enough. Almost like clockwork, they call on a montly basis to see if I still like the car, any issues, hows the fuel economy, any comments, stop in for a free coffee and yumyum, etc.

And trust me on this point: if my Prius should suddenly start to decay (Headliner fall down, rattles everywhere, seat fabric wearing through, etc), then I'll become Toyota's worst enemy too. I don't like parting with a lot of money and getting shafted. So far my Prius is holding up nicely, so I'm civil to them.

 

I agree the dealers are at fault for mudding the sales and service reputation of Toyota. People endure the overall Toyota sales and service experience in order to get a quality vehicle. If you can find a good Toyota dealer that has a quality sales department and a competent service department you tend to talk them up to whoever will listen. Of course, that dealership is usually quite successful in their own right because they are good at what they do.

But the point is that because domestic manufacturers have their corporate headquarters here and even though there is a regional management structure, there isn't the division of thought and intention that exists in Toyota's domestic sales and service structure. Ford has regional sales and service operations; in fact I know where Ford's regional management office is. It's on the south side of I-90 in the Issaquah/Bellevue area. Medium sized red brick building, big blue Ford logo on it. Hard to miss. But the point is that even though Ford has regional management corporate headquarters sets the tone for sales and service and as such you will find more accommodating Ford dealers and service departments than you will find in the Toyota organization.

The GST and SE divisions of Toyota aren't even operated by Toyota Motors Sales U.S.A., but by large import companies that got exclusive contracts to import into those regions many years ago when Toyota was trying to get into the U.S. market. From what I have heard, those regions are the absolute worst regions to buy and service a Toyota in. The rest of the regions in the U.S. have some connection with a Toyota owned subsidiary which has much closer ties to corporate.

But if Toyota wants to top all the quality lists they are going to have to focus on customer/dealer relations in addition to issues with their product. I'm afraid that Toyota is going to have to mystery shop dealerships and put millions of dollars into researching how dealership treat people and what they need to insist dealerships do to improve customer relations. As far as vehicle quality, if we are really specific with the words we use; Toyota is very good at creating long term reliable cars, however they have a hard time putting in top quality materials into their interiors. I'm not disappointed with the Prius interior, however there are aspects of it which could be better. Initial quality surveys are highly skewed by people's impression of interior fit and finish more than the vehicle’s perceived or real reliability. As such, if you build the world's most reliable car but put in an interior not befitting the world's most reliable car, you won't get the highest scores in initial quality.