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[annieover]

I'm having a hard time with the way Toyota is being portrayed as a huge villain who deserves to be crushed.  Ford has significant failures and recalls all  the time. I know the one Ford truck we had had a computer chip on the engine that was prone to failing.  If you didn't get it replaced (and there wasn't big publicity on this), the computer chip

Comments

[lifepart3]

I'm not going to praise the U.S. auto industry by any means, but that's not my take on this at all. Toyota has had reports of the brake issue for years now, including deaths, and has consistently denied any issues. They didn't do anything until they were forced to, and even their response is weak. My suspicion is that the relatively cheap/easy remedy they've chosen isn't going to solve the problem. Many experts suggest this sounds like a software issue or something much more expensive.

We were considering a RAV-4 for our next car, and it's off the list now. Toyota lost a ton of capital in my book.

[luminousx]

That is my take as well. Toyota has taken the 'prove it' stance on the brakes for awhile.

I think Toyota simply has had a bad run of luck which is bound to happen with any massive manufacturing process. They will rebound just fine and I don't think their cars are anything to avoid in the long term, but yes, just like Ford in the 80s, Toyota has some fixin' to do.

[annieover]

Generally, I have way more faith in Volkswagen, Toyota, Honda, and Volvo than I do in the big American auto manufacturers. Saturn was good, but they killed it. On one level, I have a sentimentality toward Ford because of its history, but I don't have much respect for the last 30 years of its production. How does a corporation survive for 30 years like that?

[luminousx]

Ford has only seen a comeback in the last five years. Every company goes through slumps and it is illogical to put faith in any of them. They are only as good as their current board of directors allow them to be.

[gr82live]

All these companies first try to cover it up and then, when that fails, try to mitigate the seriousness of the problem or to blame someone else.

It's what large corporations do. Maybe I'm cynical but I've worked too long for too many companies and talked to too many people who've worked in other companies to have any notion that a corporation is set up to do anything other than make money. That's right: make money, not "serve customers" or "make the world a better place". I'm not surprised anymore when I hear of companies behaving badly.

[annieover]

How do we fix that? Free enterprise doesn't really exist when corporations can engineer it so that they don't have to compete on a level playing field.

[jimbow8]

Toyota seemed to deal with the faulty accelerator fairly well. Then this "new" problem with the brakes came up and they seem to have handled it horribly: admitting that they'd known about the problem for a while, and then stating that there were no plans for a recall.

I don't think they're a bad company, at least not any worse than most. But they still are a large corporation which uses actuarial tables to determine if the cost of life is more expensive than a recall.

[annieover]

Why is that an acceptable business practice? Am I being overly idealistic to expect that companies care about their customers' lives?

[jimbow8]

I don't find it an acceptable practice. But that's just me. It seems to be the norm in the capitalistic corporatist society these days. One of the things that frustrates me the most is that, with all this talk of socialism, etc. no one ever explains how modern corporations are essentially socialistic: they internalize profits and externalize risk and expenses as much as possible.

I don't think you're being overly idealistic. I think most people aren't idealistic enough.

Wait until you read that book I lent you......

[drmagoo]

The Prius had already been bumped from my list as my #1 high mileage car desire, but this certainly didn't help. I loved the Jetta I used to have, and would be all over a new turbo diesel if I could afford it.

[annieover]

We looked at the Jetta turbo diesels too, but even used ones cost too much.

[drmagoo]

Yeah, that's tricky. If we can be fortunate enough to only need to be paying for one of our cars at a time, then we should be able to consider the Jetta when it's time to replace our higher-mpg car. The next car we buy is likely to be something larger, since our small sedans are cramped with one kid's stuff, and we're hoping to have a 2nd at some point.