Toyota Does Finds Fault In Man-Machine Interface
Since becoming Toyota’s CQO (Chief Quality Officer) in March, Steve St. Angelo couldn’t complain about a shortage of work. Sticky accelerators have been fixed on 1.5m vehicles. 1.3m Toyotas were zip-tied to keep floor mats under control. Brake software on 110,000 Priuses has been flashed. There is more to do, and “we’re getting them fixed as fast as we can,” St. Angelo said to Bloomberg.
He also found a new, and heretofore unknown failure: A failure to communicate features of the car. Which can lead to tragic misunderstandings …
Toyota engineers noticed complaints that resulted from customers that were not familiar with a feature of the car. For instance, they mistook the handywork of a radar cruise control as sudden acceleration or deceleration.
So in addition to fixing pedals and zipping carpets, “we really need to improve communication and education to our customers,” St. Angelo said. “As our cars become more sophisticated, people are not as familiar with how they work.” Toyota must do driver’s ed.
Ah, and the dreaded event data recorder readout device shortage has been addressed. From supposedly one solitary device in existence in January, the number of available readers grew to 150. Ten of them were given to NHTSA, to be used in their investigations. Another communication problem that has been addressed.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Video: 7 seconds in. The tech/mechanic is tightening the wheel bolts clockwise rather than star fashion (as I was taught). Is there something about pneumatic wrenches I should know, or should I just avoid that Toyota dealer?
Years back at VW, we had this rash of malfunctioning car radios. Their volume control was broken. The dealers exchanged the radio under warranty. The problem came back. Exchanged again. And so forth. After a while, very angry customers (several workshop visits, no resolution) and high warranty costs (those car radios weren't cheap.) Until it dawned on someone that is was a new feature: The volume went up and down with the speed of the car to adjust to the noise. It took a great effort to get this under control ....
When I am done buying the car, there is no way that I am going to spend 30 more seconds with the sales people. I have to run home and take a shower before their slime makes me break out.
Getting people to sit in a dealership and learn how to drive their cars is not going to be very popular, as commentators have noted above. I try to avoid dealerships as much as possible. I had to go to one today because a family member's car needed an oil change, and they insist on paying more for dealer service. If there is only one word I could use to describe the atmosphere in the building, it would be "dehumanizing."