The "Toyota Witch Hunt"

You want to hear someone with a ton of knowledge about cars and trucks as well as the entire automotive industry? If you are in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area (if not, you can stream it on-line), tune into KLIF 570 am radio on Saturdays between 8am and 1 pm. The host, Ed Wallace, has been in the automotive industry for years and knows his stuff. He writes for Business Week, The Ft. Worth Star Telegram, hosts his radio show, and reviews cars for Fox 4 Dallas. He's also got a great website at www.insideautomotive.com. He'll be the first to tell you that Toyotas are still the benchmark for other car companies to follow. I try to listen every Saturday, but today in particular, almost every caller is talking about Toyotas. Pretty interesting to hear him defend the "witch hunt" as he calls it and disprove all the bogus uncontrolled acceleration stories.

 

Interesting to look BACK to years BEFORE Toyota jumped the pond and became world wide, and see what happened to the Tucker Motor Co. at the under dealings of primerily GM. And also remember that this "witch hunt" is lead by the US who OWNS a certain company recently passed by Toyota in world wide sales. Ain't it all such a coincidence.

 

I dont care what anyone says about Toyota, I still think that they put out one of the best product lines. Granted some of there cars aren't my style, but the truck and SUV line are pretty good looking cars. Have you noticed how the "Big 3" are starting to model there high end lines like (cough) Lexus? Anyway, I dont think that I'll stray from Toyota anytime soon. And bonus, the GF really likes the Sequoia!

 

Yep!! The worst part is all the damn car dealers are offering all these rebates,cash back, trade in allowances, etc..etc. To get people to buy a "government" vehicle. They are gonna have to pry my Tacoma out of my cold, dead hands............along with my guns!!!!

 

While Toyota may have been the one to imulate at one time, it just goes to show those with no ethics are just as likely to sell an inferior product in order to line their pocket books.
When profit is the bottom line, the rest of us are likely to suffer.

 

Toyota news will have to take a back seat for a little while so the goules will have to wait. The news media will be pre-occupied with the 8.8 earthquake/aftershock disaster in Chile and resulting tsunamis for a few days now. My prayers are for the people suffering and in harms way in all those regions.

 

I think Toyota still makes a good product, no doubt about it. In this particular case though, I think they screwed up. They had a defective product, knew about it, and tried to cover it up. If they'd been upfront about things from the beginning it's likely this whole mess could have been avoided.

I'm not sure I can get behind the conspiracy theories about the government putting pressure on Toyota in order to boost American car sales. Back when Ford and Firestone were having issues with the Explorer there was similar blowback from the media and the government. Same sort of situation IMO.

 

Are you suffering at the hands of Toyota? If so, how? I know I'm not and neither are millions of others.

 

No, it is not the same by a longshot. Ford/Firestone killed 173 people and injured 700. Not even close.

Funny you say the above but then I look at the statistics and Toyota is still far and away one of the best in quality. I still don't know what it is they weren't up front about considering NHTSA has been investigating the situation from the beginning. They closed the case so what was Toyota supposed to do? What would any manufacturer do? Don't blame Toyota for NHTSA's failure.

Yet another failure of government and yet some people think government controlled healthcare is a good idea. Right, let's let FEMA run it.

 

No, I'm not one of those suffering, thank God.
I have been fortunate enough not to have bought one of the vehicles with major problems. My truck only has minor problems and thanks to many of the nice people on TW I was able to learn of the quality issues and get some of them resolved.
Just gettin tired of the town crier and all the bleeding hearts for Toyota. They screwed up. They aren't any better or worse than any other major manufacturer. They don't care about you. They don't love you. They don't even respect you.
Get over it.

 

Oh wasn't it an America gas pedal that started the whole recall too

 

I bought my last domestic car in 2003.
'nuff said.

 

I think when all the shit blows over toyota will be stronger and will listen to us customers better.All the BS will come out.

 

I was never questioning Toyotas quality, look at my first sentence. What the NHTSA said is irrelevant in my opinion. Internally, Toyota knew there was a problem and initially did nothing about it. There's been multiple cases where the sticking accelerator has been identified as a factor in accident that caused death, and there may be more since the cause of at least some of those accidents was initially ruled as driver error. Are those deaths on the same scale as the Explorer? No, but Toyota initially tried to cover it all up and absolve themselves of any responsibility, just like Ford did. They fucked up and got caught. They aren't the first company to do it, and certainly won't be the last either.

 

I agree, this won't be too bad because Toyota quality will only go up now.

 

I am not suffering but I am seeing the Americanization of USA Toyota
And that is a bad thing, Americans seem incapable of building anything quality anymore.
We have become a society of build it cheap and offer a lifetime warranty - then go out of business and do it again with a different company name .

I bought Japanese because I wanted Japanese quality , if I wanted American junk I would have bought a Ford .

I see no improvement with the product the big three is putting out. In fact I see the same old disregard for the consumer

 

Got ya beat, My last domestic car was around 1980, (this is my first non-domestic truck)

I also have wondered why the media has left this out, not sure it is a hugely significant but it is significant! (totaly agree with best in quality)

I think this is the bottom line, The last couple sentences say a lot, and for the next "Upteen" years anyone who has a accedent with a Toyota will blame Toyota and that is sad. Doc