Long Term Dependability studies that are based on large samples.
Personally I think one of the issues is that Toyotas seem very tolerant of owner abuse, in terms of neglecting routine maintenance. Go way over the scheduled maintenance, and neglect to check the oil, on some GM cars and you'll literally destroy them. This usually isn't the case with Toyotas, though there are exceptions (i.e. the sludge problem).
I think another big issue in the reputation of Toyota is that they tend to not fight the government or consumer groups over recalls and special repair campaigns, like the domestic manufacturers tend to do.
According to J.D. Power's long term dependability study, Ford is below the industry average after only three years.
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" Of course the J.D. Power study is always three years behind the current models, so I guess any automaker can claim anything they want about their new models, and no one can prove them wrong. But claims like that from Ford just make consumers laugh at them. They need to ante up with some sort of long warranty, or offer _something_ to back up their assertion.
You did notice who was essentially the same as Ford...Scion? I suspect Ford is talking about initial quality and not long term quality. You can get the actual JD Power Press Release (with more explanation) at
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The 2007 JD Powers Initial Quality Study is at
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. This still shows Toyota ahead of Ford (112 problems per 100 vehicles for Toyota and 120 problems per 100 vehicles for Ford). Consumer Reports has lately been showing Ford roughly equal to Toyota, depending on the vehicle.
The real question is what is the accuracy of these surveys. The dependability study is saying the average three year old Ford has 2.21 problems. The average three year old Toyota has 1.78 problems. Do you really think this sort of survey is accurate to 3 significant figures? I suspect the error is more like +/- 20%
Do you really think Buicks are inherently 10% more reliable than Cadillacs, or 26% more reliable than Oldsmobiles, or 34% more reliable than Pontiacs, or 36% more reliable than Chevrolets? I know I don't.
Or do you think that Mercurys are 11% MORE reliable than Toyotas and
29% more reliable than Fords? There are no unique Mercury models these days. They are all just rebadged Fords, so how can they be that much more reliable?
When you try to make fine distinctions, I think the numbers have a lot more to do with who you asked than what they are driving.
I think Toyota owners are more tolerant of problems than people who purchase domestic cars. I can only go by the people I know who own Toyotas and it seems to me that they tend to either ignore problems or claim things would be so much worse if they had a Chevrolet. My SO is a good example. She has a 2007 RAV4. Generally it is a good vehicle. However, it has two problems I would never accept - the rear seat releases in the back of the vehicle don't work and the cruise control goes crazy if you try to drive it at 60 mph with the A/C on (constantly downshifts and upshifts with the RPMs going all over the place). She doesn't care enough to take it back to get these problems fixed. If I had a Ford that had those sort of problems, I would have been at the dealer the next day. My older Sister is like my SO. She just got a new RAV4 (2008). Nothing wrong with it, but the car she traded in was horrid. It was a 1997 Civic. She wanted me to sell it for her. I drove it to work one days and told her I didn't want anything to do with the car. She gave me the blank :why" look. I told her the car needed to go straight to the junk yard. The only good thing I could say is that it still moved.
In my opinion, the exact opposite is true. Toyota has one of the worst records when it comes to doing recalls in a timely manner. Go research how Toyota handled the truck ball joint recall. Good PR and aggressively hiding problems is not the same as fixing problems.
Yes, a lot of car advertisements will quote the JD Power initial quality study when it benefits them, and try to gloss over the Long Term Dependability study. You're probably right that Ford is referring to initial quality.
Today I went to get a smog check at a "Test Only" smog station in California. After ten years, you often get a renewal notice that directs you to a "Test Only" station where the smog check is more thorough (they claim 15% of vehicles are selected at random), but I've been one of the unlucky few twice in a row!). I noticed that all the other vehicles waiting to be smogged were Toyotas (there was a long wait because this station had just had a coupon offer of $39.75 which is very cheap for a test-only smog check).
I asked the technician about why Toyotas seemed to be singled out for this unwanted special treatment, and he said that few other vehicles last long enough to require a smog check at a test-only station!
Fortunately, there's a Taiwanese snack food/pearl tea drink place across the street from the station, so I could enjoy some fried squid and a pearl drink while I was waiting.
Of course an alternate explanation is that the vehicles selected are not selected at random, and the CARB is aware that Toyotas turn into a smoke pollution belching heaps after ten years, so they selectively target them.....I know not true, but just as valid as claiming that Toyota's are the only vehicles that last long enough for the ten year smog check.
I'll wager you this - if you set at the intersection of Glenwood and Wade in Raleigh NC, and count ten year old vehicles for a week, you will count far more 10 year old Crown Vics than ten year old Camrys, despite the fact that in 1998 Camrys probably outsold Crown Vics 10 to 1 in Raleigh. I see very few 10 year old Camry's around here and most of the ones I do see aren't anything I'd be interested in driving. I did see one thing that surprised me twice this week on the drive to work - an original Honda Accord hatchback in cherry condition. It looked exactly like the 1980 Accord my sister owned, well except it didn't have any rust holes, it wasn't smoking, and the muffler was actually off the ground. I was very impressed. I have no idea how the car was kept in such good condition. I thought they all rusted away
20 years ago.
If you could actually afford to pay for the data, RL Polk probably could tell you the percentage of ten year old vehicles of each model that are still on the road. Nobody publishes this data for free (at least as far as I can find). One interesting tidbit I saw on the RL Polk Website is that GM (as a corporation) has much better brand loyalty than Toyota (as a corporation). Toyota as a brand does better than any single GM brand, but not as an overall manufacturer.
LOL, I guess Raleigh is _very_ different than California. Sometimes my kids and I trick my wife by walking up to an identical Camry that's not ours. There's just a gazillion third generation Camrys around (1992-1996). They last forever, unlike Hondas the paint doesn't fall off after eight years, and cars don't rust out here of course. The emissions results after 12 years were still very low. 1/6th to 1/5th the maximum levels. No special treatment, just oil changes every 5K. Average yearly non-scheduled maintenance of about $75 per year over the last 12 years, with $800 of the $900 for shocks and struts earlier this year. They could send the Camry into battle as a tank.
I don't know about Crown Vics. Except for police cars, I've never seen one privately owned out here.
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