Finally, an ad where Toyota honors its heritage instead of asking people to crush it. And all it took was a global recall of 8 million cars, the worst in the company’s history, and non-stop cries for the rolling heads of Toyota CEOs. Clicky click the image above to see the commercial.
We still don’t know for sure if the issue is floormats, accelerator pedals, or ECUs. To long-time Toyota owners, this must be disheartening. There seems to be a genuine problem but let’s not, like the mainstream media, lose our heads. Nineteen deaths, tragic as they may be, is an infinitesimally small number out of over 8.5 million cars. We don’t need to freak out because Akio Toyoda was caught on camera in Switzerland driving an Audi. He was attending the World Economic Forum, which is sponsored by Audi.
If you want some articles that put this issue in perspective, see these stories on MSN,the NY Times, and for the conspiracy-minded among you, this post (which has a good opening before going off into grassy knoll territory). If you want too see some negative articles about Toyota, just check the rest of the internet.
That MSN article really put things into perspective. After getting most of my info on this topic from the national news shows, Autoblog and Jalopnik, I was ready to join the hate bandwagon. I’m not trying to let Toyota off the hook, there’s definitely something there that needs to be addressed, but it seems like almost everyone out there is reveling like they just won the Super Bowl, especially Jalopnik.
19 death are certainly nothing to scoff at, but like the article says your chances of dying in a runaway Toyota is less than dying in a plane crash for god’s sake! I’m glad there are a few voices of reason left in the media.
Good to see Toyota value its heritage as well! 🙂
I was already tempted to drop by to my local Toyota dealer with my Carina to ask them to replace my pedal as well. 😛
I agree that the whole recall is blown up in the media. Personally I already stopped reading Jalopnik’s view on the recall. The conspiracy minded do have a point that this is very beneficial to the US car industry, but personally I don’t think it is a personal vendetta between Obama and Toyota.
If there would be a personal vendetta here it certainly would be between Jalopnik and Toyota. Have you also noticed they became very quiet about Toyota (apart from the recall of course!). Last “positive” story about Toyota dates back to 15th of January when Toyota revealed its G’s FT-86 car at TAS2010:
http://jalopnik.com/5448935/toyota-ft+86-g-sports-turbo-concept-the-ae86-trueno-returns
I don’t know why the whole world is suddenly pissed off at Toyota! They have done everything legally, with several investigations done by them and the NHTSA, that have all come up with the same results, if your floormat gets in the way, PULL IT OUT AND STOP MASHING THE GAS PEDAL ON THE FLOOR!!! And Toyota doesn’t even make the recalled accelerator, that part is outsourced. Most of the car companies in the world use the same design!(Ford is quietly doing their own recall of the part from the same manufacturer, for example. But no one’s mad at them.) I’m sorry about the police officer and his family that died in that fiery death crash, but he was an officer, if his training, and common sense had kicked in, he might be alive today. Toyota in my eyes is still and always will be the same respectable, reliable car company they have worked so hard on becoming. Any car company trying to profit over this, should take a serious look at themselves, and worry about fixing their own mistakes.
Use some common sense, folks. If you want to talk recalls, just go to any government recall site, check Chevy, Ford or any of the domestics. I found 1100 plus hits for Chevrolet on the Canada Transport site. The Toyota recall is getting blown all out of proportion and the hate mongers are crawling out of the closets.
vballin: “but like the article says your chances of dying in a runaway Toyota is less than dying in a plane crash for god’s sake!”
this falls to virtually zero if you understand how to push an easily accessible stick forward a notch.
N means neutral.
Alan- your wisdom surpasses all again!
Years ago, a friends Chevy Cavalier’s gas pedal stuck wide open. He IMMEDIATELY stepped on the brake hard, threw the car in nuetral, and pulled the e-brake when we had slowed down enough, coming to a stop in a matter of seconds, with no fiery crash! Quick and appropriate actions are usually very effective life saving techniques!
If you can’t deal with a stuck gas pedal, you have no business with a driver’s license.
I really think you shoot yourself in the foot with the “It’s only 19 deaths” comments. One is too many. If something I made and sold to someone, killed the person I sold it to, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.
We’re not disregarding the 19 deaths. They are tragic and every precaution should have been taken to prevent them. But the fact is sometimes products, airlines, federal mandates (airbags) do kill people, and the amount of uproar in this case seems disproportionate.
And it’s only just begun. The latest threat: unexpected VEERING! http://jalopnik.com/5468053/toyota-recall-unexpected-veering-is-the-new-unintended-acceleration
I don’t think anyone is disregarding 19 deaths, but the point is it’s 19 out of 20,000,000! If you sell 20 million copies of anything, sponges even, one is bound to kill someone, somewhere. They’re reporting 1000 accidents caused by the stuck accelerators. 1000 accidents out of 20,000,000 vehicles means a success rate of 99.995%. That’s to 3 decimal places!
I think the real issue here is the lack of any real driver’s education going on in this country. Why is it that almost all automatic transmission cars out there have the standard PRND12 shift gate configuration, yet most people only know how to use P, R and D and have absolutely no clue what the others are there for? This is ridiculous! Solve this problem, and not only do you save those 19 lives, but you probably save hundreds more each year.
As long as you ignore the reports of drivers attempting to pull the non-faulty pedals back with their foot just before accidents, and the lock out transmission mechanism that prevents the driver from moving the auto shift lever into neutral while the car is moving, you can blame it on driver error, just like an American car company would.
And the unintended swerving story sounds like a problem with the variable ratio/variable assist system on the power steering rack that increases steering effort and reduces steering ratio at higher speeds to prevent accidental sharp(high angle) steering movement at high speeds.
But back to the death comments, dead customers make lousy return customers.
hondas at it also for faulty airbags.
from aol autos:
“[I] notice the steeering wheel sometimes pulses only when my cell phone is…docked to the right of the steering wheel,” wrote one Corolla driver in an official complaint on June 26, 2009. “It’s strange I can sometimes tell if my Blackberry is going to ring or get an email. The steering wheel seems to shake or try to steer on its own. This is similar to my other 2009 Toyota Corolla that I resold to the dealer. I wonder if more shielding is needed to reduce any interference.”
http://autos.aol.com/article/toyota-corolla-power-steering-investigation