Toyotas fine

16.4 million$ fine for Toyota

According to the news reports thats about $2.00 per car which they sold last year.

Thats hardly an incentive to clean up their act.

However having said that ?? They must have taken lessons from US manufacturers? ??

Just how many recalls have Ford GM and Chrysler had over the years and no one put the pressure on them as much as they have on Toyota.

From some news reports it appears that the US government and banks who own GM and Chrysler are trying to make Toyota look like the bad guy, and create a market for the typical crap that US manufacturers build. and have built over the last 50 years that I am aware of.

You will notice that the GM ads promote gas milage over Toyota but not longevity.

Having owned them ALL from Nash to Studebaker , et al, I know where of I speak and having been an owner driver since 1947

Reply to
mred
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Really? Would you like to be the executive responsible for losing 16.4 million dollars?

NHTSA has forced recalls my most manufacturers. Usually the threat of a slightest threat of a forced recall is enough to prompt action. Toyota is being fined (rightly or wrongly) becasue the preception is they hid data from NHTSA in an effort to avoid being forced to do a recall for the unintended acceleration concern.

I am not going to claim that Toyota vehicles are especially bad (or good). I am willing to claim that Toyota has a long record of trying to cover up negative data and fight recalls. The UA related recalls are just the latest in a long histroy of deception. Rusting truck frames, defective ball joints, engine sludge, etc., etc. are other problems that required the application of significant pressure before the problems were acknowledged by Toyota. Whether this is the result of a deliberate effort to avoid the cost of a recall, protect the Toyota image, or related to a cultural reluctance by Japanese to acknowledge errors, Toyota does have problems with honesty when it comes to acknowledging defects it its products. And finally, that stupid power point presetation where the Toyota government relations group bragged about killing off the potential NHTSA investigation into the UA incidents really made Toyota look bad.

The fact is, even Toyota admits there were problems with some of their cars that lead to at least some of the UA incidents (sticky accelerator pedal assemblies and mal-positioned floor mats). If Toyota had addressed these problems when they first surfaced (2004), there would have been no massive public relations debacle. I also beleive if NHTSA had done its job in 2004, there would have been no debacle now.

It is easy to make gas mileage claims since there is an acknowledged standard for comparison (the EPA estimates). Longevity is not easily compared since it is so dependent on who buys the car, how it is used, where it is used, and how it is maintained. GM does imply their cars are more reliable and last longer since they provide a significantly longer warranty. This is not a hard claim, but it can be interperted as an indication that GM cars last longer (not that I agree the lenght of the wrranty has any actual bearing on the life of a car). When was the last time you saw Toyota claim its vehicles lasted for a specific mileage, or even that they lasted longer than other manufacturer's vehicles? It is dangerous to make such claims, since they open you up to all sorts of litigation in the event they don't last that long. At the most I seem to recall Toyota mentioning their reputation for building long lasting vehciles. This is not jsut a hard claim, just good advertising copy.

I have not been owning cars as long as you (I bought my first new car in 1972), but I don't think you can compare any vehicle from the 40's,

50's, 60's, 70's, or 80's to vehicles of the last ten or fifteen years. All cars are much better now than in the good old days.

Ed

Reply to
C. E. White

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