An insider's testament to Toyota's quality

A recent thread on reddit is worthy for the archive, I believe. There are some fairly significant examples of what Toyota goes through to make a quality vehicle and why they are deserving of their reputation.

https://np.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/9zo6ml/what_is_it_about_toyota_that_makes_them_so/eab0c7v/

Since not everyone understands reddit, and for the sake of future archiving, I have copied the two main comments below.
_____________

What is it about Toyota that makes them so reliable?

555_till_666 3439 points

Former Toyota employee here.

Firstly, they are very conservative in implementing new tech. Their R&D have pretty advance tech, but for production, everything is validated (probably) twice as much compared to other carmakers, thus by the time it’s green lit for mass production, it’s old tech.

New tech adoption is so slow and difficult, it often frustrate even Toyota employees.

Another thing about Toyota R&D, they have regional design houses, with the aim to “localized” parts design as much as possible, even the smallest design (engineering) details.

For example, the inside ribs of a Hilux’s wheels in Brazil is about 5mm thicker than the ones in Thailand, so they can withstand 12G, instead 10G, because they did a survey of Brazil potholes, found out they are 20% bigger compared to a Thailand pothole.

Vietnam tires have tickers sidewalls, because people on Hanoi like to climb over curbs. South Africa’s absorbers are 2mm thicker, because people less likely to brake when they see a rock. Air intakes for tropical countries are placed 15mm higher, because there have more floods. Tiny changes which are easily managed at parts manufacturing level, but have significant impact in reducing failure rate.

For comparison, a German 3-series’s Transmission Oil cooler may be good enough for German weather, but they are same size for a UAE 3-series, which will kill the transmission.

A Golf’s Dual-clutch is nice in Autobahns, it won’t lost long in Indonesia’s stop-go 20km/h traffic jams,

And that's why North American Toyota's a rarely exported, or Euro/Asia model imported, not only because of regulations and tax, but NA's usage condition is so much different from other countries, the cars wont be as reliable as intended.

Another thing, not all country has the same situation regarding car service. And Toyota is very knowledgeable about this.

Missed the Civic Type-R turbo oil change schedule because that single Honda dealer in your island is full? You just slash 2 years out of the turbo’s life..

But do you know a Toyota Etios in India have water proof Volume knobs, because they did a 6 month in survey 10 different states and concluded most dealers use soap to clean the interior, seriously.

And don’t let me start on materials, so many version, variation, caveats for standards, sometimes it feels like they are exporting to a different planet.

So, this is why most Toyota ends up with a 4 AT, 50hp/liter engine, with boring hard plastic interior, numb steering, and goofy tiny wheels with huge wheel arc gaps.

And there’s Toyota procurement and manufacturing practice, which I’ll probably write more about later.
__________

555_till_666 824 points

The reason I’m using a throwaway, is because some of the info here are confidential. Most of the specs I mentioned above are evaluated against something called a “Toyota Standard”. These standards are closely guarded, for example, In a subsidiary of 2,000 employees, only 2 person have access to it, and you’re not allow to keep any electronic copies, just paper, and every time you print it, your name will be watermarked over the whole page. So nope, I’m not taking any chances.

Anyway, back to these “localized” R&D, it’s not all rainbow & unicorns. Toyota also messes up and ends up with a sub-par car, because of misjudging, or under estimating market demands.

Like a commenter mentioned below, yeah the Ethios is a pretty bad car in India. Main reason is the over generalization of the India market. Their aim is to make it cheap, and doesn’t break (on certain components). Almost everything else in Toyota parts bin were deemed too high-spec for the India market, thus a lower-spec component, just enough to satisfy what they considered “an emerging market”.

Oh boy, how they were wrong. And now, Toyota learned that India is actual 10 different market, intermingled with each other, with their own purchasing power, expectation and usage condition.

Another example, you notice how most Toyota cars have this “ECO” or “High efficiency” certifications from different countries, while maintaining the same old NA engine. Well, sure the engine is “tuned” a bit here & there to be more efficient, but mostly it’s the transmission and throttle detune.

For example, A 2nd gear is fine in this situation.. nope you get 3rd gear!. So you pressed 80% throttle, here's a discount, 60% throttle to you, oh the magic of fly-by -wire throttle.

So, the car will feel a bit sluggish, but it will produce those nice consumption ratings. And most people won’t notice anyway, because who would full throttle a Toyota Estima amirite.

OK, back to happy stuff.

So I mentioned about procurement. Toyota don’t mess around when it comes to suppliers, it's borderline Stockholm Syndrome.

I’ve seen Toyota engineers who after a meeting in 10am, book a 4pm flight from Japan to the Philippines, buying some clothes on the way to the airport, just so the next morning they could go to this one supplier 50km from Manila, to confirm one particular welding machine of one particular brackets, because one of Toyota’s material lab found out 2 out of 100 sample of theses brackets developing micro cracks, which have 10% chances of breaking apart. So let’s set a camp in front of this welder, until we know why some of it cracked.

See, there are definitely engineers in Toyota Philippines who are capable of doing the same welding study, but this guy from Japan is the one who signed off this supplier, 5 years ago, so no way he going to trust some guy over a phone 3,000 miles away. He “owns” this bracket.

So Toyota have this concept called “Genchi Genbutsu”, which means something like “actual place, actual thing”. So the engineers no matter how many reports, data, pictures, nothing beat actually going to see the thing itself, studying it, discussing about it, in front of the actual problem. And I would have to admit, it just feels more right doing studies on on-site instead in a meeting rooms with printouts and PowerPoints, even if now that you have facetime/skype.

And for that Philippines supplier, well they’re going to be whole lot busier in the next year or so. 2~3 times more audit, more report, more samples. I’ve seen supplier’s engineers quit because of things like this, because the workload increase is just too much.

On the other hand, these suppliers would wear “We supply to Toyota” badge proudly, and it will definitely give them more business. There are even some car makers who would skip some evaluation processes on these Toyota supplier, thinking if it’s good enough for Toyota, it’s good enough for everyone else. Hmmm…probably…

Maybe I write some about manufacturing and service/dealers later


EDIT: To show how serious they are taking this on-site studies concept, Toyota HQ in Japan have a freaking helicopter for engineers transport to domestic factories and dealers, because sometimes, a 300 km/h train is just too slow.

 

holy cow

 

Interesting read. This jumped out at me because when I was going to tech school back in 04/05 we had a couple japanese "students" come join our class. They were already master certified, toyota factory trained guys in their late twenties but toyota had plans for them somewhere in the states and they wanted them to have good car related english vocabularies and a good understanding of the american approach to car repair.

They were cool guys! Very friendly, humble and razor sharp with diagnostic skill. They were enrolled just like regular newbie students and participated in the same curriculum we all did. Im not sure where they ended up, maybe toyota corporate in Torrance or maybe somewhere else

 

The hitting throttle at 80% with a discount of 60% throttle makes 100%. I bet this started mid 2000s as my 175hp 4runner has 1000 times better throttle response than my wifes 2012 Tacoma.

 

Toyota does a lot more "Mean Time Between Failure Tests" than other manufacturers ... on their purchased components too.

Basically testing purchased components until that fail to know their duration and quality.

IMO ... Toyota is the most "overall" quality conscious mass vehicle manufacturer in the world.

 

To us this is often a good thing. You don't need three computers "married" to each other to control power windows like in German cars, or $800 "smart" fuseboxes aka TIPM with multiple circuit boards like in GMs and Chryslers.

Makes you wonder what happens if you took a Middle East-spec Hilux and drive it in the US for a few years. My suspicion is it will turn into a rusty heap, both structurally and with all the electrical components.

Oh this is well known. Good examples in the US are the Mark IV Supra (well engineered but sold poorly due to high price) and the 4Runner V8 (sold poorly due to rising gas prices and later the economic recession).

They do this because production rate is high. When you are pumping out 1000 Camrys a day, correcting a defect in 24 hours vs 72 hours means 2000 fewer cars need to be reworked or recalled, so it's worth paying $300/hr to fly engineers over on a helicopter.

 

And this is why I'll never stray. Thanks for this OP!

 

There is a few Harvard case studies on Toyota manufacturing processes. They dig deep and gives you solid insight as to why Toyota is the Gold-Standard in Manufacturing.