Play word association with the average American consumer. Say the words “quality cars.” Chances are they’ll respond with “Toyota.” For decades, the Japanese automaker has carefully nurtured and perpetuated a reputation for producing well-built/reliable cars and trucks. As a result, the company’s US sales have grown like kudzu. As of last month, Toyota now sells more cars in the Americas than Ford. If you discount fleet sales (so to speak), Toyota’s totals are within shouting distance of GM’s, both nationally and worldwide. Despite this startling, seemingly unstoppable success, or perhaps because of it, the company’s supposedly impenetrable façade has begun to show a few cracks.
Toyota’s first foray into US manufacturing began with a 25% federal tariff on foreign pickups. Toyota reacted to the punitive tax by importing bare chassis and attaching the truck beds in an American facility. When The Big Three (who were about to introduce their first domestic small trucks) pressured Congress into widening the tariff to include imported chassis, Toyota built an American plant to assemble complete trucks. Once the Japanese manufacturer realized they could build competitive vehicles stateside, they began expanding their American operations.
To avoid the United Auto Workers (UAW), Toyota situated their new factories in “right to work” states. As many industry analysts have concluded, Toyota’s clean sheet factories (eventually aided by state-funded tax breaks) and non-union workforce gave them an immediate and unassailable advantage over their “domestic” competition. While GM, Ford and Chrysler were busy appeasing their unions, draining funds which could have been used to upgrade their ageing products and antiquated production facilities, Toyota hit the ground running and never looked back.
At some point, Toyota became a victim of its own success. The company’s double quick expansion, from perennial underdog to voracious overlord, has compromised their unique selling point: product quality. Specifically, Toyota has suffered a plague of recalls around the world. In 2003, the automaker recalled 200k American vehicles. In 2004, the number increased fivefold, to a little over one million vehicles. In the following year, the number leaped again, more than doubling to 2.2 million. So far this year, Toyota has announced five recalls affecting approximately 900K vehicles.
Again, Toyota’s rapid growth is to blame. For one thing, the company’s design centers have been understaffed. The shortage of in-house talent has forced Toyota to outsource, relying on its parts suppliers to design key components. At the same time, the automaker has increased the amount of parts sharing among different models. The practice has dramatically increased the scope of a "single" failure, as witnessed by last October's recall of 1.27m Japanese vehicles. Goldman Sachs estimates that design faults (e.g. rubber parts not thick enough to withstand engine heat and joints too weak to hold together) account for 68% of Toyota’s 2004 recalls.
Andrew Phillips of Nikko Citigroup stated "Toyota's resources have been stretched quite a bit by the big increases in volume." Shinsei Securities analyst Yasuhiro Matsumoto lays the blame for Toyota’s declining quality squarely on Katsuaki Watanabe’s shoulders. He claims the CEO’s constant focus on cost cutting has created devastating production glitches. The resulting quality issues have become so alarming that Watanabe recently admitted, "I take this seriously and see it as a crisis." It’s just as well; Goldman Sachs analyst Kunihiko Shiohara estimates that it may take Toyota four years or more to achieve "a fundamental turnaround in quality levels.”
Toyota also seems to be off their game in predicting market shifts. True, the company displayed impeccable timing by importing the Yaris just as American demand for smaller, higher mileage cars kicked into high gear. But Toyota’s also about to begin production on a larger, heavier and more powerful full-size Tundra, assembled in a brand new $800m Texas plant. While Toyota sells the high mileage cars tree huggers love to hug, they also have the thirstiest truck fleet on the market. And now that large truck sales seem to be tanking, they’re gearing-up to produce them in record numbers. Only time will tell if they’ve made a smart move (i.e. if sales recover or GM goes bankrupt), but at this point their timing could hardly be worse.
Earlier this year, Toyota announced they were delaying the introduction of the new Corolla for a year to focus on the launch of the new Camry. This will leave the current generation Corolla in service for a Big Three-like six years. While the move could reflect a redoubling of Toyota’s commitment to quality, it gives the model’s competitors some much-needed breathing room. Is this a minor setback in Toyota’s relentless march on American market share or warning signs of a more fundamental, less easily solved problem? It’s too early to tell. But stay tuned. We’re on it.
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Toyota definitely isn’t infalliable, they’re manufacturing complex machines, perfection is impossible. They do still appear to do a better job than anyone else – I saw some NHTSA numbers showing that the total number of recalled Toyotas was far below any other major manufacturer for the past 6 years. Of course, this doesn’t count severity, such as the “stop driving the vehicle and get it towed to the dealer” vs. “replace a piece of plastic”. I’ve had two family members who had recent Toyotas require towing, one of them my brother with the infamous and widely reported computer programming problem.
I myself own two recent Toyotas, both purchased to carry the little ones in maximum available safety for a reasonable price. Both have been recalled for for very minor problems. Camry – to check a side curtain airbag, which was determined not to be defective; Sienna – to replace a plastic 2nd row seat belt bezel that had the potential to snag a seatbelt, that we wouldn’t be using for years as car seats are installed. The vehicles have been completely problem free other than those 2 recalls, and there was no downtime as they were done during periodic maintenance. Yes, I would buy them again.
Contrast the Sienna with the unreliable but recall-free GM CSV’s with the break-away 2nd row seats in side impacts. What would I rather have my family riding in?
Sorry, can’t edit my above entry. My brother required his 04 Prius be towed due to computer failure.
I always perceived toyota as the “middle ground”. Ok all around cars, decent quality but I never considered them for my purchase. Not that toyta has to do everything, but where are their “sporty” cars? The MR2 ????? Please!
Subaru – wrx series
Ford – mustang(GT)
Honda – S2000
.
.
.
and I could go on. Almost every manufacturer has a high performance car except toyota. Where is the successor to the supra twin turbo?
It’ll be a while before there’s a need to a Toyota Death Watch I think.
The Corolla was delayed in part becasue they wanted to stagger the updates of Camry and Corolla. Not much sense updating your two highest selling cars at the same time. The Corolla is also holding its own in terms of sales.
As for quality, they have quality were it counts. That is, build quality that people percieve and enjoy on a daily basis. If owners have to put up with one or two insignificant recalls in the car’s lifetime, then no big wup. Unless their QC problems start killing people on mass then i think people will just shrug it off as inconsequential.
I guess I don’t see the point of the article.
Sure, Toyota may have some issues with quality of current product. Should I be worried? If so, why? Quality issues are only going to be a serious problem for the buyer if they’re persistent, they’re covered up and/or the manufacturer hangs the customer out to dry over the subsequent problems. Is the culture of quality breaking down at Toyota? By providing me with 4 great vehicles and excellent service, Toyota has won some measure of my loyalty. Should I reevaluate my loyalty to Toyota? I don’t see any persuasive evidence of that at all.
While it’s true that Toyota may have underestimated the potential impact of gas prices on truck sales, GM’s and Ford’s apologists are quick to point out both that trucks will continue to be required for some applications and therefore the truck market will continue to exist and that trucks are where the profit is. If these things are true, why wouldn’t Toyota build a truck plant?
I think Toyota has two simple reasons for building the San Antonio truck plant. First, they think they can build a better truck than GM or Ford at lower cost and they’re going to win market share with lower prices or just make money off better margins. Second, they want a truck plant in the heart of ‘Murkin’ truck territory to help offset the lingering xenophobia that attaches to Toyota products.
Poorly thoughtout article. Recalls = Bad quality. Thats it. There are no more statistcs/data reasoning to his argument. How about JD Power Surveys? True Delta Data ? Any other indicators of quality?
Part sharing and outsourcing have nothing to do with quality. Toyota making big trucks has nothing to do with quality. Delayed launch of the corolla has nothing to do with quality.
Although they do have something to do with the quality of your arguments.
When Toyota’s CEO calls his company’s quality problems a crisis, I’m inclined to believe him.
I agree with a_d_y_a, recalls do not equal bad quality. In fact, a quick recall indicates that Toyota cares more about fixing a mistake quickly than ignoring it and hoping not enough people complain.
I work as an engineer, and we can never fix everything we find. The goal here is to sell a product that is good enough that the customer will be happy. This means that we often have avoidances of problems that we cannot always figure out. With a car, which is just as complex as the computers I work with, I’m sure there are issues that are similar. In Toyota’s case, they react quickly to recall often minor issues with their cars. Furthermore, Toyota takes care of their customers in dealers, where people can go to quickly get most recalls solved. In the end, most customers are not going to care if there is a recall if it is solved in a quick and timely manor. In fact, they will probably be understanding, as people can make mistakes, and they will be happy that Toyota took care of it efficiently.
While issues such as the Prius software problems are rare, most of Toyota’s recalls do not even come close to that severity. No car is going to be perfect, however Toyota does a good job offering a good product to people, and attempting to keep their customers. The same cannot be said about certain domestics, such as GM, where dealer experiences are notorious.
I own a Camry, and the only reason I will not buy another one is that I want something sporty, like maybe a WRX. If someone is not a driving enthusiast, the Camry is a fine car. It is an appliance, but that is how its owners view it.
Robert, it may be a crisis, but based on my expereince with Japanese partners I’ve worked with, a “crisis” for them develops in the quality area much faster than for us Americans. For perspective, if GM / Ford /DCX had the same standard, they would have been in crisis for a few years now.
Aaaawwwwww…It will be ok guys… Toyotas are infallible I promise… just burry your head in the sand and it will all go away.
It continues to amaze me how the attitude towards Toyota mirrors that of the domestics back in the 70’s and early 80’s. The Pavlovian reaction to any bad news about the “mighty T” is met with “well at least its not as bad as the domestic crap” (substitute Jap for domestic and we could all be back in bell-bottoms). Simple fact, actual quality between makes is pretty even… perceived quality is another matter. Do you want to know Toyota’s main problem? Age. They have the oldest average buyer in the industry (here in Canada anyway) and their buyers tend to keep their vehicles for a longer period of time. If other manufacturers start to gain on Toyota’s perceived quality image and also build more exciting products, then Toyota could be on the same, long downward trend that is hurting GM, Ford, et al.
As for dealer experiences, I have never had a bad experience at a shop, foreign or domestic.
No results at TrueDelta (www.truedelta.com) just yet, but working on it. I’m only collecting data on a few Toyotas at this point (2005-2006 Prius, 2007 Camry, 2004-2006 Sienna, 2006 RAV4). I’ve looked at the data a bit, and Toyotas still appear quite solid based on what I have.
I’ve never focused on recalls as an indicator of quality myself. Especially not number of units recalled, as a single small part can result in millions of recalled vehicles. You’d need a much more thorough analysis than I’ve seen anywhere yet.
Analysts rarely have a clue. They don’t have enough detailed information. I was inside GM for a couple of years. What the press said about the company had little to do with what was going on inside the company.
I also agree that Japanese CEOs are more apt to be apologetic and admit to a crisis than American ones. That’s how their culture operates, CEOs are expected to act this way in Japan. This said, Japanese culture is notorious for resulting in talk for the sake of public appearance. You can’t base a lot on the words alone, there are many nuances that headline-focused Westerners will entirely miss.
What I want to know is when JD Power rankings meant anything to anyone but those easily influenced by advertising trumpeting their lame ratings system…
Clarification.
I wasnt defending Toyota. Toyotas might have the worst quality, but article provides no real data/reasoning towards that effect besides recalls. I find the article to be bad.
Since there’s no absolute definition of “quality,†what we’re talking about here is the perception of quality. Obviously, cars are complex mechanical devices and all complex mechanical devices will have some problems. The difference comes, I think, in how the respective dealers handle the problems that inevitably arise. And it’s a dealer issue because, like it or not, the dealer is the manufacturer’s representative to the customer.
American car dealers, particularly Ford and GM, are well known for dealing with legitimate warranty complaints by quibbling, disputing, and blaming the customer. When they do finally get around to making a repair, they often do a half-assed job so the problem is not really fixed. In my (admittedly limited) experience with Japanese car dealers, they’re much quicker to respond to a complaint and much more positive about resolving it. I think it is this, and not the number of recalls and/or problems, that is the source of the perceived quality difference between American and Japanese car makers (and yes, I know there are positive experiences with American dealers and negative experiences with Japanese dealers, but I’m talking about the broad trends and the popular perceptions, not specific “war stories.â€)
Maybe this is related to the relationship between the dealers and the manufacturer. Maybe dealers quibble or do shoddy repair jobs on warranty issues because they have a hard time getting paid by the manufacturer to do warranty work, so that there’s little incentive for them to undertake warranty repairs. Or maybe dealers are so used to padding their repair costs that they’d rather do a non-warranty repair for big money than a warranty repair that the manufacturer will only pay a fixed cost for. Maybe Toyota and co. have a better way of paying dealers for warranty repairs (even encouraging dealers to undertake warranty claims.) Having never been in “the bizâ€, I don’t know. I do know that every time I’ve taken a Japanese car into a dealer for warranty repairs, they’ve bent over backwards to accept the claim and fix it completely.
So, bottom line, I think the dealer and manufacturer’s response to problems has more to do with how they are perceived than the mere number of problems that arise.
And as for the full-size truck plant, what too many urban-based automotive writers seem to forget is that there is a vast space in this country, between the coasts, where a full-sized truck is a necessity of everyday life, not merely a “lifestyle accessory.†If Ford and GM start circling the drain, then any buyer will have to imagine that a Ford or GM warranty won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on. In that kind of situation, a reliable full-sized truck from a company with a reputation for quality starts to look better and better (and let’s not forget that the generation that fought the “japs†is getting far beyond truck-buying age.) So I think Toyota is crazy like a fox for building a full-size truck plant in the US.
Recalls don’t necessarily equal quality faults – but it can signal a trend. Most important is how the company responds to problems: Stonewall (early Intel, Ford’s F150 Flambé …) vs. Fix it (Toyota, later Intel, et al).
MB showed serious quality probs which were reflected in owner experience. Our new ’98 E320 after several 124s was a continuing disappointment around the edges (beyond quality issues). I had my share of recalls and warranty repairs, but the little cheap stuff was annoying: no dead pedal, visors that no longer slid out to screen from the side, vinyl on the center armrest that wore out 3 times in 2 years … and much more.
Contrast that with a 2006 Scion xB; it’s an inexpensive car that keeps surprising you with subtle quality touches. Latches that work well, quality materials, storage that’s useful, a decent sound system out of the box (well, I guess it’s actually in the box…) and more. After six months it’s still surprising me by being more than I expected where the Benz disappointed by being less.
Still love the engineering on the Benz – it’s just sad to see the results of “Product Managers Gone Wild†(“Bean Counters Gone Wild�). I hope Toyota won’t go far down that path…
There was a Wall Street Journal article about this issue a year ago or so. (not available on-line).
It’s not going to help GM or Ford. Even if they have solved their quality problems, their cars still suck. Bland designs, low quality interiors, antiquated engineering.
Martinjmpr
All warranty labor time rates are reduced for every manufacturer but the Japanese labor rates (dealer flat rate time) are the worst in the industry… And I have been in the “biz”.
Dealers are private retailers and the quality of the service is mainly independent from the product (control is attempted but rarely achieved). Some dealers are good and some are bad. It’s just like avoiding the shitty Pizza Hut and going to the good Pizza Hut across town. Your results may vary.
The $64,000 question is: what will Toyota do?
There are always issues that are inherent to rapid growth. Toyota has at least reached the first step, admitting it has a problem. I would also agree with Michael Karesh that recall numbers in and of themselves are meaningless. You have to look at the why the recall, and how serious is the problem. Context is really important, irrelevant of who made the car.
Fortunately, Toyota’s problem is currently that it consumes 2 nice $6 bottles of Chilean wine every night with dinner then starts telling dirty jokes a bit too loudly for the clientele at the club. It hasn’t quite reached the drinking a 12 of Bud during the day and a fifth of Jack on the way to the Olive Garden, only to finish the evening standing on top of the table and pissing in the general direction of the kitchen because they wouldn’t ‘keep them breadsticks a-comin’ 20 minutes after close.
But if Toyota doesn’t pull it together, they will eventually find themselves in a bit of a pickle.
Looking at JD Power as “data” is asking a mercenary for his political views. JDP does a survey. If you have studied how to conduct surveys, you’ll know that if you phrase the question correctly, you can get the most die-hard ditto-head to agree that Rush is just another drug-addled, failed sportscaster from southern Missouri.
Since JDP is merely an industry whore, they know how to give the veneer of caring about the car buyer, when in reality, they just care that the car-building johns pay up. Sure, there’s some truth in there, but…
For those Domestic apologists/delusionals who think I have a rising sun tattoo, I’m not that loyal. Should Toyota (or, heavens forfend) Honda follow the GM/Ford model, then they deserve to go Tango Uniform just like the General and Ford.
I’m an equal opportunity despiser of poor quality.
Eitan wrote:
“Robert, it may be a crisis, but based on my expereince with Japanese partners I’ve worked with, a “crisis†for them develops in the quality area much faster than for us Americans. For perspective, if GM / Ford /DCX had the same standard, they would have been in crisis for a few years now. ”
Michael Karesh Wrote:
“I also agree that Japanese CEOs are more apt to be apologetic and admit to a crisis than American ones. That’s how their culture operates, CEOs are expected to act this way in Japan. This said, Japanese culture is notorious for resulting in talk for the sake of public appearance. You can’t base a lot on the words alone, there are many nuances that headline-focused Westerners will entirely miss. ”
Fellas, I was thinking the exact same thing. We rightly complain that F, GM, and DCX don’t listen, and that they are in denial. And when Toyota says “we have a problem”, we point to that and say “see, see” as if the first and last day of “The Toyota Death Watch” will happen tomorrow.
Yes, they need to keep their eye on the business. Yes, they need to prevent small problems from snowballing into massive avalanches. It seems like they’re doing that now. Nice to see.
That reminds me, I have a steering recall to get scheduled for my Prius. At least they issued a recall and not an excuse.
If American cars are “boring” it’s because there trying to replicate the squirrel-powered dishwashers you guys like to call cars.
There is a curious thing that happens when you start looking at quality.
You have to either have to come up with an objective measure of quality (tear it down yourself and to MTTF analyses) or accept people’s surveyed responses about it. The “people” are those who bought the vehicle, so you necessarily have to accept their demographics (age, usage pattern, expectations etc.).
It is possible that a vehicle could have good quality for one demographic and poor quality for another?
I think it can. A Buick may be super-reliable to a person who never drives it hard but awful for a teenager. Note that Buick owners are the oldest AND that Buick has high respondent-based quality. Remember when Scion (the youngest brand) got lousy quality ratings?
Every wonder why subjective quality is better on a Matrix than a Vibe (even though they are the same in most ways)? People’s expectations probably play a part in the maintenance they are willing to perform! (Conlon, E., Devaraj, S., and K.Matta, (2001) Initial Quality and Maintenance Behavior: The Case of the Automotive Industry).
So how can buyer’s ratings of quality be used to determine objective quality (which is what we all really want). I don’t think it can. Or if you try to subject the quality data to a model that is able to parse out the effects of demographics, you will end up with a mess that is impossible to explain.
That said, I think that truedelta’s approach looks fairly promising…I hope Michael can get some data out to us…
Until then, I will continue to baby my Civic and Corolla…and continue to enjoy the fact that they keep running. Oh yeah, I will also rely upon anecdotal information. I hate to say it, but anecdotes do contain SOME information and I am able to filter those anecdotes by the type of person telling me about it (which I cannot do with aggregated ratings, obviously).
“In 2003, the automaker recalled 200k American vehicles. In 2004, the number increased fivefold, to a little over one million vehicles.”
If you fold something it is doubled, fold it again and it is doubled again. Fivefold would be 2 to the 5th power or 2*2*2*2*2=32.
Sorry to be so critical but was an otherwise excellent article. As Toyota gets larger and larger, they will suffer the growing pains of any large manufacturer. They just thought they were above all others and could cut costs and not have quality suffer. It will be interesting to see if they learn from their mistakes or will they be like the US companies and continue to repeat them.
In previous articles it’s been mentioned that Toyota keeps trying until they get things right. At least they are not deneying that there are problems like the domestics.
They’ve had some stunningly bad cars in the past (Paseo? First few Tacomas?) but they keep working on them until they’re better, or drop them and concentrate on their strenghts.
I do hope they build something more exciting then lukewarm tapwater though.
One the different side, at least the FJ has styling. Maybe not good styling, but hey, they tried.
“If you fold something it is doubled, fold it again and it is doubled again. Fivefold would be 2 to the 5th power or 2*2*2*2*2=32.”
Sorry to be so critical, but Merriam-Webster defines “fivefold” as “being five times as great or as many.” That doesn’t equate to anything to the 5th power.
Main Entry: five·fold
Pronunciation: ‘fIv-”fOld, -’fOld
Function: adjective
1 : having five units or members
2 : being five times as great or as many
- five·fold /-’fOld/ adverb
Recalls don’t necessarily equate to “quality”. Malcolm Bricklin (who soon will be importing Chery cars from China through his Visionary Vehicles) once bragged that his YUGOS “never had a recall.” Yeah, but they were cheap, nasty FIATs built in a communist Yugoslavia, Malcolm.
My 2005 Prius was recalled for the steering issue, I got it done already, no sweat. My 2002 Hyundai was recalled for a side airbag issue a few years back, no sweat.
Look at Toyota and the Prius, if you want to consider the quality that Toyota ARE capable of.
The car is – literally – more complex than any Ferrari or Lamborghini. It has SIXTEEN CPUs. On a 17 mile commute from home to work, the gas engine probably shuts off and restarts 40 times, I’m guessing (I’ve never counted, and it would vary from trip to trip anyway).
My point is – the Prius is known to have had a glitch in the programming for the 2004 and early 2005 cars (mine was not one of them). Yep. Sure did. They fixed it.
Now the Prius is 99.99999% perfect in it’s computer programming instead of 99.999% perfect.
My Microsoft programming in my computers at work and at home? I should be so lucky.
As for the rest of the Prius, it is known to be one of the most trouble-free cars on the American road. I think the figure was 4 problems per 100 cars (which could include a rattle in the glovebox, for cryin out loud) vs. the Toyota average of 12 problems per 100 cars and GM/Ford/DCX average of 18 problems per 100 cars. I think the figures were for the first year, in Consumer Reports.
Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard all the complaints about Consumer Reports. So, why do so many of us buy their magazines and study them before plunking down $20,000 for a car, again? Because they’ve been at it since 1936 and IT WORKS much of the time to do so.
Some unbiased information from other owners is sure better than only biased information.
Too bad the other magazines gave up on surveying owners. When I was a kid, I think it was Popular Mechanics that did surveys of owners and road tests of new cars in one article and showed results. Now, most such magazines are only PR flacks for the car companies.
Good thing we have TTAC.
Thank you for courageously pointing out what the rest of the media refuses to accept. Time to open a Toyota Death Watch (and close the GM Death Watch already). Without the phoney “quality” image, Toyota is nothing.
4, 12, 18 per 100 — they all seem way too low. What counts and what doesn’t? CR largely leaves it up to the respondent to decide what to report.
If the numbers are accurate, how excited can you get about avoiding 0.14 of a problem?
Just from an anecdotal perspective, I never thought Toyotas were all that great quality-wise.
I had a ‘89 Celica that suffered from a variety of problems, most irritatingly a broken power-window switch.
My parents are now on their third Lexus ES. The first two had their own share of problems, nothing to leave them at the side of the road, but when the lights that power the electroluminescent gauges die and you can just guess at your MPH, that is Not Good.
But the dealer treats ‘em nice and the ES330 (lousy, really, in terms of fun-to-drive, design and packaging) offers what they are looking for. I suspect that’s the case with most Toyota/Lexus/Scion owners, so even if the quality isn’t quite as advertised, they are more than ready to accept it.
OTOH, I had a 1980 Ford Mustang that was a POS… and the very reason for my dad to start buying Japanese.
Does anyne recall the infamous engine sludge issue? Toyota in order to keep up the “environmental crown” with Honda had to quickly develop a ULEV engine for the fleet. Honda was just release the LEV years before, and ULEV and was just about to release a SULEV vehicle (bragging points).
Toyota did the cheap thing (what Ford would do). They took the corporate 3.0 and 2.2 engines and turned up the wick (heat) – hotter the combustion the cleaner the exhaust (less emisions for the cat converter to burn – also allowed the pre-cat & cat to heat up faster as hotter exhaust came through). Toyota found out that internally they had problems with longevity of the engines as they did not increase the cooling effectiveness of the engine to deal with the hotter temps. Honda redesigned the heads completely, the oil and coolant passages for their engines. What is of utmost importance is oil not just there for lubrication but also does the most in terms of cooling the engine (does greater job than the cooling system as that is a supplimentary).
Failed engines started showing up at dealers under warranty. Toyota’s first focus was that it must be the owners fault b/c they had oil changes at 5k internvals rather than the recommended 3.5k. After much “bad press” Toyota finally and as quietly as a 800lb Gorilla started swapping out engines under warranty.
There’s a lot of Toyota worshippers who have no clue. Don’t get me wrong a Toyota is usually a well built car – but they make big mistakes too and try to hide them from us.
I’d rather put my faith in Honda…smaller and as reliable a car mfgr. But they walk the walk. Honda is the only car that has focused solely on the environment (CVCC, highest CAFE ratings without cheating by building E85 flex vehicles, LEV, ULEV, SULEV, PLEV, Insight and mainstream Civic Hybrid). They are an engine mfgr that grows its products through the abuse of racing. Think that’s important…the more fuel you can burn (hence less emissions) makes the most power and gives you the best mpg. Honda’s were reknowned in CART for being able to go several laps longer than competitors b/c of better fuel mileage (even in the waning years of competitive IRL Honda just engineered a better solution).
However, Honda does get out of control and too much into crazy ideas…but first and foremost their controlling board and management are engineers who care more about the product they sell to consumers than an accountant or salesperson ever would. For instace the TL/CL transmissions were starting to have failures and Honda after research extended the warranty on them to 100k or 10 years. If you have a problem…just write them a letter (they respond every time).
Great engine company that “really” cares about the environment and its customer’s well being.
The MR2 ????? Please!
Subaru – wrx series
Ford – mustang(GT)
Honda – S2000
.
.
.
and I could go on. Almost every manufacturer has a high performance car except toyota. Where is the successor to the supra twin turbo?
On an autocross course the MR2 would beat the first 2 cars you mention pretty handily.
As for the Supra, allegedley coming back, but only rumors for now.
jaje,
Must disagree with you.
I owned a 1976 Honda Civic CVCC hatchback. It was the worst car I’ve ever owned. Blown head gasket, abysmal drivability and an electrical system that went haywire and would do things like engage the starter while driving down a road at 60mph. It sat at the dealership for three months while waiting on a new carburator. Complaints to Honda elicited nary a response.
Got rid of it and replaced it with a 1978 Ford Fiesta. It too had its share of problems but more than made up for them by being a blast to drive. That 1.6 liter, cast iron, pushrod operated OHV Kent engine ran circles around the Honda CVCC. Thoughts of the Fiesta still live with me today in the guise of my ‘03 SVT Focus.
Side note on the new Corolla – it is a 6 year cycle for the global platform, but it’s only been in North Amerca for 4, since we received the current generation a couple years after the fact.
My first car was a 1979 Toyota Corolla, a gift from an aunt. We didn’t know how many miles were on it, since the odometer only displayed five digits and it had rolled over at least once by the time I got it in 1990. I drove it for about four years until the electrical harness pretty much fell apart and I sold it. Had to get the automatic trans fixed somewhere in there, too. I don’t know where it is now but I hope it is running still.
My current ride is a 93 Tercel, the absolute base model, not even a mirror on the passenger side, 4 speed manual trans. I got it with 132k miles on it for $1500, decided to go ahead and get the timing belt changed, and drove it from North Carolina to Texas by way of the Mississippi Gulf coast. No problems at all. Then, last summer, I got a job that involved me driving from Atlanta to Nashville to Memphis, Kansas City, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and then across New York state, up to Canada and down to NYC, all the way out Long Island, through northern New Jersey, then down to Georgia. Aside from oil changes, I had to replace a CV joint (which entailed replacing the whole left front axle) and the oxygen sensor. This year my only repairs have been the other CV joint, new front brake pads and replacing the clutch master cylinder. It just rolled over to 169k. Now, my car is not perfect; the seats are dilapidated, cheap plastic that falls apart in every Tercel I’ve ever seen, and I’ve never spent the cash to get the air conditioner fixed and converted, so summer is very special.
But compared to the compartively more luxurious 95 Neon coupe I had, in which I had to replace the engine entirely and later on replace the notorious head gasket, and my experience, gearhead455’s protestations (for one) to the contrary, is that Toyotas are Damn Good Cars, and I would take one over any “Domestic” product in a heartbeat.
I hope that Toyota’s quality issues are just a passing phase, and the company continues to produce the low-cost bricks that I have known and loved. I figure someday I’ll own a 2008 Yaris, probably around 2013. All the bugs should be out by then.
Never once said Toyotas where bad cars, actually I think they are quite good. They do nothing for me however… Looks great on paper but nahhh, I already own enough nice “reliable” appliances. I need a CAR not a personal transportation eco bubble.
No bias there jaje:
Toyota is evil! They lie! Honda is blameless and holy! Their only problems are passion and imagination!
They have too much!
A couple of things:
-Toyota death watch? Are (some of) you kidding? Although they are definitely having problems, they aren’t *anything* on the scale of GM or Ford. They aren’t even close to endangering the immediate business. Sure they could degenerate, and yes you could argue they resemble domestic problems over 30 years ago… but that leaves how many DECADES to turn things around?
-Recalls can be construed to be an indicator of quality (or lack thereof) but don’t show the whole picture. We have to keep in mind EVERY SINGLE CAR COMPANY has produced lemons. I think generally speaking, if something that has no sense breaking breaks, causes the car not to work at all, is expensive or hard to fix, repeatedly breaks or isn’t fixed on the first or second try, that is really bad quality. In my experience with Japanese cars, usually troubleshooting is straightforward and logical, and its clear some parts just wear out, sometimes due to bad design. On the other hand, i’ve had to work on oldsmobiles and mustangs with the oddest problems, requiring replacements of control modules, mechanical components, wiring, all to no avail. Sometimes replacing one would make things a little better, but not solve anything…that’s not good quality.
In my opinion, the current general sentiment against domestics is the results of many experiences and hearsay from drivers about their own experiences, dealer experiences, their observations, their attempts to diagnose problems, times their cars haven’t started, etc. Comparing that to my own experiences, I tend to agree. That has nothing to do with the press by the way.
“If American cars are “boring†it’s because there trying to replicate the squirrel-powered dishwashers you guys like to call cars.”
Yeah, because every American car would be a Corvette Z06 if it weren’t for those damn underpowered imports.
Most of those “squirrel powered dishwashers” run times that would make a big block from the late 60s blush.
Just a few points…
Yes Toyota has had a few quality issues the past few model years. This is very much a true statement, and for Toyota this departure from the norm is in fact a “Crisis”. That said I think what Toyota calls a quaility crisis, and what Ford or GM call a crisis are two very diffrent things. I think the attention and the direct attack on the quality issues speak highly for the brand. I buy many cars, my last domestics were a 2002 Z06 Vette, and a 2001 Ford Focus ZX3. Both were quality nightmares. Both cars had entire transmissions replaced under warrenty, both were plaged by poor component quality, mainly starter motors, alterantors and other such items (AC compressor and the Vette is worth mentioning), and not to forget the famous brakes on the Focus, which would only last a mere 6000 miles of normal stop and go commuteing.
The real diffrence is the the Domestics I owned and the Imoports I have owned is not that the domestics have required tirps to the service department and the imports have not, the REAL diffrence is the approch taken to resolve the issues. For example; on my 2001 Focus I had to fight tooth and nail at three diffrent dealerships just to get the Ford warrenty departments involved, despite a class action law suit, and countless instances of the exact same brake issues, ( even a dedicated website at the time, http://www.fordfocusbrakes.com ) , In the end the ford warrently rep flat told me that the brake wear, and the resulting brake failure was by design, and that I was on my own to replace my 6 month old brake rotors, bads, and service the calipers. After two sets of brakes in a year, I turned to the aftermarket for a solution, and depsite spending near $1500, I have had no issues since.
I contrast, when my wife’s 2004 Armada brake rotors warped at 10K miles, I was welcomed at the Nissan service department, offered a loaner Armada, and Nissan replaced the brake rotors, calipers, pads, and even the front struts all with redesigned parts. I have had no issues since.
Quality is not just how the cars leave the factory, it is how the company approaches the problems that arise post sale. This is in my opinion is where the real diffrence in Import vs. Domestic quality is most evident.
Now as to the comments about “squirrel-powered dishwashers” Well you can suck on my 750hp stock engined Toyota Supra Turbo’s fat exhaust.
My 1994 Supra has the original factory motor, bone stock, and has made over 750hp for 120,000 miles; (with just a larger turbo, larger fuel injectors, larger intercooler, and a and a second fuel pump.) In the car’s life thus far it has had 1 alternator, a few factory TRD clutches, an O2 sensor, and power window switch. If that is not design and build quality, I do not know what is.
Cheers
Frank:
I apologize about the FIVEFOLD comment. I stand corrected. I now have a goal in life – to hunt down my 9th grade geometry teacher and cause some severe physical pain.
I guess, just like Toyota, as I get older the quality is declining.
Nels Nelson – Yes Ford is definitely out there for you with reliability and safety. Let’s just think how much more dependable at making sure your life comes to an end than the Pinto versus the CVCC Civic (I’m sure you had problems and maybe tried to rectify them but my family has converted from Ford due to the death of friends that owned a Pinto – whic ended the lives of the wife, child, newborn in a small 25mph rear ender – just open ones’ eyes, well that and the Ford lawyer at the hospital trying to get a confidentiality agreement and work on the settlement). Now that’s a smart investment – your safety versus profit. We all know who their real customers are – stockholders and the Ford family. Now let’s work to today, 16M-20M Fords with those cruise controls that catch fire or will not disengage and go wide open throttle (only 4M recalled – NHTSA has several open investigations into the others). The Focus had 18 recalls in a 3 year span when it was on the market. Now, a company so embroiled in safety scandals has to bring to light that you must be worried that some where they cut a drastic corner that could endanger your life. Yes – you’ll counterargue that “everyone cuts corners somewhere” – but it seems Ford does it in the most egregious ways so Billy can tell his already filthy rich family that they are worth even more.
Now please note that HONDA is not perfect in any way. It’s just their “over” focus on technology as they are an engineering company. That’s why they have made some of the safest cars now on the market to everyone including pedestrians, the most fuel efficient lineup of cars and trucks, they mapped the rice genome to create greater crop yields, they studied cockroaches (jokinkly followed GM and Ford execs around avoiding responsibiltily) to learn how they avoided danger, they developed the most fuel efficient and lowest drag small jet in the business, they saved money by raising soybean crops near auto plants to reship back to Japan instead of sending the parts containers empty, they spend more on R&D total than any other auto company, they have a vested company run research into hybrids, ethanol, ngx, fuel cells, diesel, electric, gas compression ignition (like a diesel engine but using gasoline), etc. No other car mfgr has this focus on bringing to the forefront this set of technology as our needs change (and somewhat drastically).
Toyota has had their corp offices raided for recall scandals and they’ve been banned from several motorsports venues for cheating and bribery (think WRC). CART’s destruction started with Toyota’s entrance – making them break their own rule in engine changes, taking credit for Honda’s domination in CART after buying out Ganasty’s team, hiring Ferrari’s head tech and having him steal and use confidential information for their F1 team, list goes on. I sum up Toyota – good cars, dishonest management.
jaje,
Do you know the difference between a ‘78 Fiesta and a ‘78 Pinto?
I bought my daughter an ‘01 Focus and liked it so much I bought the ‘03 SVT Focus. Both have exceeded my expectations. Can’t say the same about the ‘76 Honda.
Ford Focus’s are hunks of mexican built crap.
The number of issues I, and other Focus owner have had with those cars goes on and on.
RF: “…Toyota’s CEO calls his company’s quality problems a crisis…
Bet you can’t find that statement coming from any GM, Ford or Chrysler CEO in the past 30 years, though obviously it was warranted.
How they handle this will determine if they do, indeed, go on to dominate the global car industry, or if they fall back into the pack.
Nels
You’re missing the point. The point is that Ford, when it had problems with the Pinto, chose to hide and deny it as long as possible, instead of deal with it, which is what Toyota did with the sludge engines. Honda comes out and makes it right.
Kestrel,
Rumour has it that Honda had a huge problem with their front suspensions on some Civics a few years back (2000-2002). It was kept pretty quiet until owner complaints reached the point where Honda felt they had to do some PR damage control via cash back offers to Civic owners to help them buy or lease another Honda. Whether this actually happened or not, I can’t say as it stayed very quiet.
Funny that this kind of stuff (like the Toyota engine sludge deal) never makes headlines in the news while any Ford and GM recall is front page stuff.
(A little bit of trivia: the 2000-01 Focus was an unmitigated disaster with recalls and quality control issues galore. It was the most recalled car in North America at the time. The second-most recalled vehicle at that time? The BMW X5.)
Honda makes great cars and trucks but they too make mistakes. It will be interesting to see how readily they address customer concerns as their vehicle fleet grows. Recalls are costly affairs and companies strive to limit their cost exposure for good reason. It’s relatively painless when you are recalling tens of thousands of units, it becomes a huge problem when you recall millions.
When I had problems with the ‘76 Honda I contacted and talked to people at Ralph Nader’s Center for Auto Safety. They were aware of the problems with Hondas and pushed Honda to issue a recall which they refused to do. Plus the fact that I never received a response of any kind soured me on Honda. The problem with blown head gaskets was common with the CVCC.
A friend’s wife has a ‘99 Accord that had a transmission failure. They would not cover the repair at first but subsequently did reimburse him.
Currently Honda is having problems with engine fires on the CR-V which they are blaming on faulty oil filter installations. Some blame it on the excessively high exhaust temperatures which cause the exhaust system to actually glow under normal operating conditions. The oil filter sits directly above the exhaust system.
I do have a Honda lawnmower that I like.
CSJohnston,
I have a friend who bought an X5 and sold it in the first year because he could never be sure it would start. Had to be towed to the dealer numerous times. He said the best thing about the BMW was that he was able to sell it for what he paid for it.
A man in New York City took delivery of a new X5 on Friday September 7, 2001. Over the weekend the transmission failed and went into “limp home” mode which kept it in second gear. Instead of going to work on Tuesday morning he took it back to the dealer. This was on September 11 and he worked in the World Trade Center.
MR Toyota carefull what you wish for being number1 has its pitfalls