Re: OT Wonder why we own Toyota? look at alt.autos.ford.focus

Just to throw a little gas on the fire...

In a period of 11 years (according to your chart), the Corolla had a total of 6 recalls, affecting a little less than 800,000 cars. In a period of 3 years (again according to your chart), the Focus had a total of 12 recalls, affecting what looks to be near 3,000,000 cars.

Now, I'm not saying that one car is better than the other... but those figures aren't exactly helping your arguement any.

Just a thought...

In news: snipped-for-privacy@mindspring.com, C. E. White being of bellicose mind posted:

I was in the repair trade for 20 yrs. Fords = job security. For a variety of reasons I won't own another one.

You are wasting you time with Toyota owners, they think Toyotas never break down and every body else builds junk and you will not change their thinking. If somebody says they have a problem with a Toyota the Toyota guys call them a troll. They always talk about recalls but they never want to hear that, except for the Camry, their other vehicles sales suck against Fords. Even the Camry is second to the Accord in some markets. The F150 out sells the Camry and so does the Silverado. If Toyotas are so good why are buyers buying more of other manufactures products? If Toyotas are so good why are not more people willing to pay the extra 20 or 30% more it cost to drive one home? Why do Toyota guys never talk about all the problems with the Avalon. The Avalon probably has more problems cars, as a percentage of sales, than any manufacture. What's the big deal about recalls? A recall merely means the manufacture has found something that is not up to snuff and is notifying owners of free fix, if needed. The great majority of vehicles examined for the problem indicated in the recall do not even exhibit the problem. Toyota likes to go the TSB route with the problems it discovers rather than a recall. Look how they are urging dealers to clean engines that begin to exhibit gelling, before the problem ruins the engine, rather than fix the cause of the gelling by installing the newer heads. The type of recall and the reason it is issued is what is important. Speaking of gas on the fire, Ford never needed to issue a recall on the CV for rear collision that could result in a fire because the CV far exceeded the federal standards for those type of accidents. Toyota did have to issue a recall for Tacoma because it was improperly assembled with a fuel hose that did not meet federal build standards. A small item with a simple fix and like most recalls it only applied to some of the trucks recalled, but it could have be deadly to an unsuspecting owner.

mike hunt

Racer X wrote:

That's why I said you need comparative sales figures for those years. Only one recall affected all Focus models, and it affected almost everything Ford built (not just Foci). This was the wiper motor cover recall. And it was a relatively low risk problem. If you leave that one out, you are down to around 2M vehciles recalled in total. The second biggest recall was not for a design defect, it was to check to see if the pinch bolt on the lower front suspension had been properly tightened. Ford recalled an entire series of vehicles in order to be sure that there was not a problem. If you look in the NHTSA complaint database, there were only three complaints related to the pinch bolt recall, and only one of those involved an actual failure. (the other two were complaints that the parts were not availble -which is weird since no parts were needed). The number of Focus recalls is not a good record (0 would be good), but it is not the horror story some try to paint it to be. Look at the nature of the recalls, most are for realtively low risk items and in several cases, the number of actual reported failures is very low. For whatever reason, I am of the belief that Ford wil issue a recall at the drop of a hat. Until recently, most Toyota models were first introduced in other markets. By the time they came to the US, the major bugs had been worked out. The Focus was a completely new car when US manufacturing started.

Ed