Commentary By Ron Beasley
For years it seemed that Toyota could do nothing wrong. The quality and value of it's cars and trucks was rarely questioned. The last few months it seems Toyota can do nothing right. The latest:
Toyota will recall Lexus GX460, DOT officials say
Toyota Motor Corp. is recalling the Lexus GX460 sport utility vehicle
to correct a problem that could lead to rollover or loss of control,
according to Department of Transportation officials.
Problems with that model surfaced last week when Consumer Reports
magazine reported that the vehicle had slid out of control during
routine testing. In response to the findings, Consumer Reports issued a
rare "do not buy" advisory to the public.
Toyota's recall would affect roughly 6,000 vehicles in the U.S. To
date, Toyota has responded by testing all of its SUVs for potential
stability problems. It acknowledged that it was able to duplicate the
problem with the GX460. Toyota officials could not immediately be
reached for comment.
In recent months, Toyota has announced a number of safety recalls,
including two huge campaigns related to sudden acceleration, as well as
recalls for braking problems in hybrid vehicles including the Prius.
Since September, Toyota has issued more than 10.5-million recall
notices.
Details of Toyota's plan to fix the Lexus GX460 were not available.
Toyota has agreed to pay the 16.4 million fined levied by the DOT but that's just petty cash when compared to the millions the recall and repairs have already cost and the probable millions resulting from civil lawsuits. And of course there is the damage to Toyota's reputation for quality which could cost them billions in lost sales for years.
Of course any or all of the automobile companies could suffer the same fate. Modern motor vehicles are loaded with microprocessors and the lines of code that tell them what to do. As an engineer I learned that the more complex something is the more likely something will go wrong.
Indeed, the computer complexity in modern vehicles takes a lot of control away from the driver. In many modern vehicles you're not actually connected to the wheels, engine or brakes. No thank you.
ReplyDeleteI haven't looked into this roll over issue, but all SUV's are prone to it. (Do they still come with visor warnings that the vehicle doesn't handle like a car?) They are an affront to Newton, but people buy them because they "feel safer". They're not, and the only time they are moderately safer is in a collision between an SUV and a passenger car...modern passenger cars are now bulked up to protect occupants from SUV's.
The moral of Toyota's story is that following the US business model leads to trouble. It forsook the idea that profits would follow quality vehicles and decided to get big and chase big profits.
On the other hand, the media has turned on Toyota ferociously. In this span there have been plenty of recalls for other manufacturers but we don't hear about them. I wonder what turned Toyota from media darling to goat so quickly?