john wrote in
>news: snipped-for-privacy@m27g2000prl.googlegroups.com:
>
>> "Akio Toyoda's story doesn't add up.
>>
>> The president of Toyota Motor Corp., the centrally controlled behemoth
>> founded 73 years ago by his grandfather, told a congressional
>> committee Wednesday that he didn't know about mounting sudden-
>> acceleration complaints with Toyota vehicles until late last year. >
>
>ALL automakers have SUA incidents. In fact, from 2004 to 2009,
>Ford had FAR MORE of them than Toyota did.
>See the small graph part way down this page:
>
>
>How fast did Ford react to those sticking cruise-controls?
>Not too quickly, I see...
>
>
>Where was your righteous indignation then, "john"?
>
The graph fails to differentiate between the causes and solutions. Many of the Ford complaints would be expected to be related to the cruise control issues and in many/most of those cases stepping on the brake disengaged the cruise and allowed teh vehicle to be brought to a normal stop. That has not been the case with the latest Toyota problems that have been making the news. It's the same problem as when people make a big deal over the JD power reliability ratings, they don't differentiate between a $3 warranty issue and a $3000 one.
No company is going to react until they see that there really
>is a problem resulting in issues over and above what is "normal".
>And certainly nobody's going to bug a company's President with
>mundane technical issues.
>
>
>
>>
>> He also didn't know the substance of a corporate briefing paper
>> prepared in July that touted $100 million in savings on recalls,
>> warned about sudden acceleration complaints in Toyota and Lexus models
>> and described a federal bureaucracy that is not "industry-friendly." >
>
>
>But I thought the NHTSA was in the automakers' pockets! You can't
>have it both ways, buddy.
>
>
>>
>> But now, faced with a global brand and P.R. fiasco, Toyoda knows with
>> "absolute certainty" that the sudden unintended acceleration
>> complaints tied to 34 deaths and the recall of 8.5 million vehicles
>> worldwide cannot be attributed to electronic throttle controls in
>> Toyota and Lexus cars and trucks.
>>
>> Really?"
>
>
>
>Yeah. Really. It's simple pedal misapplication, just like always. >
>And that Rhonda Smith lady? Her complaint had been rejected by two
>inquiries already, so why is she being given a third kick at
>the cat?
>
>As for 77-year-old Guadalupe Alberto, she fits the standard profile
>of the pedal-misaplication SUA incident:
>- female
>- elderly
>- occasional driver.
>Her family's ghoulish lawyers will try to turn her death into
>cold hard cash, but Toyota is almost certainly blameless.
>
>
>
>
>>
>> From The Detroit News:
>>
formatting link
> 04/Toyota+executives++testimony+comes+off+as+clueless#ixzz0giWQQzar >>
>
>
>This is just a hatchet-job written by a union worker who is upset
>that his union pals are losing their Government Motors jobs.
>
>A different view, here:
>