CEO: Toyota vehicles lacked passion, must be more exciting

I guess they do lack passion. Some of the absolutely poorest decisions I ever made in my life were "passionate" ones.

I saw a web page of an electrical engineer that put his Prius into "European mode" (runs on the electric motor more than gas, also the mode used in Japan). He wired a Libretto laptop into the OBD-II port and gets right into the ECU, and has different programs to do different things. He RE'd all the stuff himself. He can look at *all* parameters, not just the ones shown by the dashboard GameBoy, and can change a lot of stuff on the fly.

I didn't get to test the Hybrid Highlander. They were just coming on the lot when I *AHEM* 'left' the dealership... ;)

I met a guy with a Celica GT yesterday. I almost bought a GTS instead of the Scion, but the price was too much. I know, it is a rare car...

I was looking at his seats to see if they will fit into the Scion. The only thing I don't like about the tC is the seats. It feels like I'm sitting at a dinner table. You know the others I have (had), an '80 SR-5 Coupe (Trueno, no Levin...), an '85 Corolla GTS, the 88 Supra, an '85 Celica GTS. They all sat you low to the floor, with the gas pedal as an extension of your right foot, and a perfect heel and toe configuration of the pedals. I can't dance, but you should see me work the pedals on an '80's Toyota!

I'm trying to get that feel with the Scion, and the Celica seats, like I had surmised, look like they will bolt right in. Oh, boy!

Sometimes I do wish I had bought the 02 GTS....

I drink a beer to that.

Ed

I wonder if they'd have taken a different decision had the "cash for clunkers" plan not contained such a namby-pamby fuel-economy requirement (and no requirement for US manufacture or content at all). Or if gas prices hadn't (IMHO temporarily) fallen. Or if the overall economy didn't stink (a lot of Americans aren't in the market for a new car regardless of incentives). Or if Toyota's partner in the venture weren't fighting for its very life.

NUMMI makes what I consider highly satisfactory (if maybe not super- high-wow-factor) vehicles that are good on fuel economy in their classes. In a parallel universe only slightly different from ours in perhaps just one of the abovementioned aspects, that plant is going at it hammer and tongs for the foreseeable future.

Keep in mind also that it might be mostly bidding and bluffing in a very high stakes card game rather than a done deal at this point.

Cheers

--Joe, happy owner (maybe too happy -- no replacement plans) of a NUMMI-made '90 Corolla

There's a girl that has a 1987 'Corolla' FX that might want to sell it. I was surprised to learn it was made by NUMMI.

Can I *knew* I heard a collective "duh" out there.... :-p

Yeah, every year for the last 20 years or so, it's the same thing. Number one in customer satisfaction and reliability. How boring!

Not true. In fact, I don't think Toyota has ever been number one in Customer Satisfaction or Reliability (Lexus has some years, but Toyota, never). I think if you check the facts, you'll see Buick has beaten Toyota on both scores more than once. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't feel all that great running around saying, my car is almost as good as a Buick. But then I think most of the beauty polls people like to quote are at best bunk. CR's is the worst, and JD Power only a little better.

Ed

What those scores DON'T tell you is the truth behind the facts.

Buick. Let's analyze that, shall we? The average age of a Buick buyer is what? How many miles a year does he drive? What kind of roads does he drive on--freeway or surface streets? How many features of the car does he use--does he even turn the radio on?

Buick can make the numbers simply because of their demographic, not because of their cars. Normalize the demographic--put the average Camry buyer into a Buick, for example--and see what kind of numbers Buick comes out with.

I'll give Buick kudos as far as having improved the breed, but there are several factors as you say. Some of these satisfaction indices are based upon almost new cars. Let them age 3-4 years and see what they look like.

My wife and I bought Buicks for some years. Sometimes she talks about her last one (98 LeSabre) being a good car...BUT, it burned up an alternator, threw a belt when the goofy tensioner seized, ate a HVAC computer, had the plastic plenum decompose and fill the engine with water, had a transmission problem that never advanced to failure but was scary at times, had the radio tape deck fail (known weakness in this case) and so on.

Was it really good? Maybe not as good as she remembers it.

I had an 89 Regal that was a pleasure to drive (when it ran). It lost the Metric tranny at less than 100K miles, ate water pumps like crazy, polished off the water pumps with a dessert of ECS100 alternators (MANY of them),had regular problems with the rear disc brakes (a defective design), had the cheapo pot metal door handles break, developed water leaks around the rear window, etc etc... It had so many nice characteristics, but was -despite my fond memory of it - a piece of crap.

Why would the same water pump on my '88 Celebrity go 120k miles before it started weeping, and the replacement go to 190k miles and still be fine when the car was junked, while your Buick ate them? And it's the same pump on my '97 Lumina which went to about 110k when I put in a new one as a precaution because my girls took the car on a long trip to Florida. Ever see a movie called "The Cooler?" I think you're a cooler around water pumps. Water pump bad luck goes where you go.

--Vic

Baaaah. Baaaaah. Baaaaaaaaah.

This was the only car I ever had that behaved that way. It was a 2.8 litre V6 by the way.

Not SOME years. About 90% of years in the last 2 decades. In the other 10%, Lexus was either tied for 1st or 2nd.

You keep saying that Lexus cars are just a rebadged Toyota. Now when presented with data that doesn't support your point of view, you want to separate the 2. Your hypocrisy is duly noted.

Customer satisfaction is not a beauty contest. Customer satisfaction is a survey of how happy people are with their purchase of their hard earned dollar. Reliability is not a beauty contest, either. These are hard facts, not subjective judgments. Again, your hypocrisy is showing.

Car magazine ratings are beauty contests. Made by middle aged men living out their middle-aged crisis. Are you in that category?

Meh, there's some truth to what you say BUT... if Lexus service is anything like Infiniti service, the dealership experience may influence customer satisfaction in a big way. Had a friend years ago who had a used G20 (basically an upscale Sentra.) Missed a shift on the freeway and got a free head rebuild from the dealer even after admitting to blowing said shift. He eventually traded it for a Z, and complained that they didn't treat him as well afterwards.

The reverse can be true as well. IMHO VW made some of the finest small FWD boxen on the road in the 80's but their dealer service was so atrocious that they always were at the bottom of the barrel in customer satisfaction.

Magazine road tests do tell you a lot about a car, but not always everything you want to know. Some Mitsubishis road test well, for example, but I wouldn't own one if it were free. You can't predict dropped valve guides at 50K miles based on a couple hundred mile road test of a new car, but you CAN assess acceleration, handling, and comfort...

Now what I want in a car is light weight, great handling, rear wheel drive, gobs of power, a shifter that feels like the bolt of an old, well-oiled ought-six, controls that as they say "fall readily to hand" and comfortable, supportive seats. I also want dead nuts reliability and an econobox price. Unfortunately I don't think that this car exists :(

nate

Reliability as reported by the owner is 100% subjective.

It's 100% reliable, Elmo, that you'll make an ass of yourself every time you post a message.

By that logic, why isn't doesn't Infinity have the same customer satisfaction ranking as Lexus? Obviously, there are other factors at play here.

Dealer experience is one of many factors. IMO, dealer experience is less important than the following:

- Reliability - Don't underestimate the anger and frustration people experience wasting time in a repair shop after spending many thousands of their hard earned dollars for a product. This includes "free" warrantee service.

- Design/Ergonomics - The product must work as intended, meet or exceed the customer's expectations and occasionally make them smile and in awe. It's important to note that, while you may have ambitions to be a race car driver, the average consumers defines the "driving experience" very differently than you do.

Car magazine road tests are good for data (e.g., handling, braking, noise level, etc.), but their opinions and rankings are far less useful because they are based on the priorities of the authors, which tend to be way more "hot rodish" than the average consumer.

Your priorities are different than mine. Nonetheless, my perfect car doesn't exist, either. So we have to choose amongst the options that the market offers.