Poor Toyota... by Niki2

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Poor Toyota...

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Thursday, February 11, 2010 15:49
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Monday, February 8, 2010 9:18 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Along with the Japanese government giving them hell, they seem to be having problems with advertising, too. Poor babies:

Quote:
Toyota Dealers Pull ABC TV Ads; Anger Over 'Excessive Stories'
'Punishment for Reporting' as Southeast Dealers Shift Commercial Money to Non-ABC Stations

Toyota dealers in five southeast states have pulled their commercials off ABC TV local affiliates, complaining about the coverage of Toyota safety problems by ABC News and its chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross.

The ad agency representing the 173 dealers told ABC affiliates last week that the shift was due to "excessive stories on the Toyota issues." The dealers shifted their commercial time buys to non-ABC stations in the same markets, "as punishment for the reporting," according to an ABC station manager.

ABC News and Ross began reporting on the problem of "runaway Toyotas" last November in a series of stories that preceded the large recalls ordered by the company, and apologies for quality shortcomings as well as misstatements about the extent of the defects. Toyota is now expected to add the 2010 Prius to its list of recalled vehicles.

The shift of commercials away from ABC affiliates was ordered last week, according to Marcia Owens-Reder, senior vice-president at 22Squared, the Atlanta advertising agency that handles the account for the dealers, known as Southeast Toyota.

Reder said she "tried" to talk the dealers out of the move. "We have counseled the client on the pros and cons of this, and ultimately it was their decision to make," read an e-mail sent to the stations from the agency last week.

"Please let me know the earliest that we can get off the air on your station," the message concluded.

Reder referred further question to the president of Southeast Toyota, Ed Sheehy, of Deerfield Beach, Florida. He did not immediately return calls from ABC News.

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Monday, February 8, 2010 9:30 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Don't shed too many tears over Toyota; I think they'll be fine in the long run. They had something north of $55 BILLION in cash reserves banked away back BEFORE they became the world's #1 automaker, before the big economic downturn hit, so I think they'll muddle through.

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Monday, February 8, 2010 9:47 AM

WULFENSTAR

http://youtu.be/VUnGTXRxGHg

.... Toyotas WERE great cars... until they started having them built in Mexico.

Just saying... you get what you pay for in terms of labor.

Ford figured that out during the 80s and 90s.. which is why, ironically... right now I believe that Fords are actually AS reliable, if not more so than Toyotas...

Can't believe Im even saying that. But really, it comes down to Q/C and what you are paying people.

(Cue the "thas raciss!" peanut gallery)

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Monday, February 8, 2010 10:03 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

(I was being sarcastic, dear...)

There's nothing racist about what you wrote, Wulf...you're getting paranoid.

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Monday, February 8, 2010 10:06 AM

WULFENSTAR

http://youtu.be/VUnGTXRxGHg

"There's nothing racist about what you wrote, Wulf...you're getting paranoid."

Yeah, well... wouldn't you be?

lol

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Monday, February 8, 2010 12:41 PM

KWICKO

Quote:
Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
.... Toyotas WERE great cars... until they started having them built in Mexico.

Just saying... you get what you pay for in terms of labor.

Ford figured that out during the 80s and 90s.. which is why, ironically... right now I believe that Fords are actually AS reliable, if not more so than Toyotas...

Can't believe Im even saying that. But really, it comes down to Q/C and what you are paying people.

(Cue the "thas raciss!" peanut gallery)

Which Fords, specifically, would you point to as paragons of quality and value?

Oh, and since you say they're AS reliable, you should probably look into the recall of the Fusion Hybrid, too.

As to your assertions about Toyota, which specific models do you refer to that are being built in Mexico, and where do they fit in on the recall?

And yes, I definitely CAN believe you are saying that. As usual, you're spouting off things you THINK, and citing them as FACTS.

As for your racism, that's well-known and well documented. As to whether they can build a decent car in Mexico, GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, VW, Fiat, and many others seem to think so. A great number of the VWs sold here are stamped "Hecho en Mexico", in fact.

'Course, a great number of the Tundra pickups on the recall list were built here in the U.S., if that tells ya anything. Oh, and the Toyota workers here are paid quite well, thank you. Well enough, in fact, that they haven't taken any steps to unionize, because they find no advantage in doing so, since the company already offers them better pay and benefits than the average auto worker in the U.S. can expect.

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Monday, February 8, 2010 12:58 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Considering that it's been more propaganda deluge than public awareness, and more torch and pitchfork than actual reporting...

I don't blame Toyota one fucking bit.

When was the last AMERICAN recall (IF the automaker in question didn't buy it off like Oldsmobile did!) that you saw get this kinda coverage...

Oh, yeah, that side-impact thing with the trucks, which they got rightly called on sensationalising, didn't they now ?

Why should Toyota pay it's advertising dollars to a television station that seems bent on demeaning their product for nationalistic reasons than any more honest ones.

Oh, and Wulfie childe, most (north)"american" made cars are built in mexico out of cheap chinese parts forged out of shit-metal I wouldn't boil potatoes in, and yet the Toyota Camry and Camry-Solara are made in fuckin Kentucky, and the Sienna's made in Indiana, by american workers, out of primarily american made parts, thankee muchly.

And those are only the ones I can remember off the top of my head, I think they make a couple trucks and SUVs here as well... Nissan too if I recall correctly.

Oh, and did I mention that a lot of the folk building them are AMERICAN workers the big three threw under the fucking bus via outsourcing and layoffs as they shoved everything somewhere they didn't have to pay people a decent wage, figuring they would just slap a flag on that overpriced shit and morons like you would continue to buy it like the ignorant gits you are ?

Toyota will fix this fuckup, and unlike american manufacturers they'll do it right the first goddamned time, which is all one could ask of em, and if they wanna get pissy about an *obvious* propaganda campaign, they've every right to do so, and ABC damn well deserves exactly what they got, finally some actual real life penalty for the bullshit all main stream media has been playing on every topic for almost twelve years straight, and I hope they learn a fucking lesson from it.

Nuff said,

-F

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Monday, February 8, 2010 2:00 PM

KWICKO

Here's what Toyota builds here in the U.S. (according to Toyota, not according to Wulfie):

Oh, and according to Toyota, they have a single plant in Mexico, in Tijuana, which makes nothing but Tacoma pickups.

The Tacoma is ONE of the vehicles on the recall list, but hardly the only one, or the best-selling model to make the list.

Quote:
Is your vehicle involved?
Vehicles recalled - Floor Mat and/or Pedal Recall

2005-2010 Avalon
2009-2010 RAV4
2007-2010 Camry
2008-2010 Sequoia
2009-2010 Corolla
2005-2010 Tacoma
2008-2010 Highlander
2007-2010 Tundra
2009-2010 Matrix
2009-2010 Venza
2004-2009 Prius

Near as I can tell, just about all of those models are made right here in the USA, by good ol' 'Murican workers. Guess they shoulda built their plants in a country with better workers, huh, Wulfie? ;)

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Tuesday, February 9, 2010 7:55 AM

KWICKO

Bump for the Wulfchilde!

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Thursday, February 11, 2010 2:39 AM

KWICKO

Add about a million Hondas to the list of recalls. Faulty airbags are the culprit.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100210/ts_nm/us_toyota

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Thursday, February 11, 2010 3:53 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Toyota's troubles are getting so much more air time because you got folks like Transportation Secretary LaHood and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hounding them in press conferences and committee meetings at every turn.

Think the government wants folk to stop buying Toyota and start buying GM and Chrysler much?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Thursday, February 11, 2010 4:50 AM

WULFENSTAR

http://youtu.be/VUnGTXRxGHg

If I was wrong about Toyotas/Hondas being manufactured in Mexico, I was wrong.

Jeeze Kwick, go use the bathroom.

However...

http://business.highbeam.com/436103/article-1G1-135704137/first-mademe
xico-toyotas-hit-showroom-floors

Thats 2005 btw.. almost to the day when the quality of Toyotas slid. Just saying...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_United_States

And my point was that using 3rd world labor in an effort to bring down costs has its disadvantages..

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Thursday, February 11, 2010 5:54 AM

BYTEMITE

Reading the original post: Pulling ads because the platform they're on is also being used to express complaints makes no kind of advertising sense. Don't you want to try to counterbalance the negative message?

Wulf, it looks to me like Kwicko's information was more recent than 2005, and it says that only the Tacoma is built in Mexico.

Now there may be something to be said about the workers the plants in question are employing in America at what wages, and possibly valid comparisons of the conditions of those factories and workers to the Mexican factory, but we'd have to find the data. It could represent a shift in company policy Re: manufacturing and testing. But clearly it's not because they're building cars in Mexico. One factory in Mexico is not some sort of virus that suddenly makes engineers hundreds of miles away incompetent or lowers morale or something.

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Thursday, February 11, 2010 10:28 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Reading the original post: Pulling ads because the platform they're on is also being used to express complaints makes no kind of advertising sense. Don't you want to try to counterbalance the negative message?

*points at Rappy for a prime example*

And what, Byte, exactly... are your chances of reasoning with THAT mindset, eh ?

About zip point shit, and Toyota knows it.

Most of the recalled vehicles are, in fact, american made, and in part *because* of the flaming, and the automatic as well as asinine assumption that "damn foreigners" (see also: closet racism/nationalism) are responsible, which is being pushed by folks who damn well know better for propaganda reasons, the Toyota execs have "let slip" (deliberately) rumors that they may well move their plants ELSEWHERE, somewhere folk might actually have a clue how to build a car.

That's not so very likely to happen.. YET - as much as it is a deliberate slap in the face to those folk playing this dirty little game, and if it continues, the likelyhood of Toyota moving it's plants increases exponentially.

But of course, nobody seems to *want* to be reasonable about it, not from what I am seeing.

And when it indirectly boomerangs, and the same dumb shits who were hauling out the pitchforks and torches watch their local economy plummet when Toyota closes the plant, dumps the workers, and takes their business elsewhere, they'll also be the first to scream and point fingers at the "damn foreigners" for "destroying our economy", won't they now ?

I'm sorry, when someone shooting themselves in the foot chooses to use a shotgun and reload multiple times, there's not a lotta sympathy for em from my corner - Toyota is a business, you don't like their products, you're completely welcome to go buy some (north)"american made" (assembled in mexico from chinese parts made of shit metal I wouldn't boil potatoes in) vehicle for three times more which gets a quarter of the gas mileage and will fall to pieces in less time than it takes to finish making the payments.

If the american auto industry spent half the time and effort they and their press shills spend trying to demonize their opposition, they MIGHT actually build a decent car for once.

Me, well, given the utter shit I have to choose from, and the outrageous price imma hafta pay even for the crappiest car (even if I don't get the damn CAR, fuck you GM!

) whether I boycott american products or not...

I am very very damned tempted to buy a Toyota out of sheer malicious spite.

-F

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Thursday, February 11, 2010 3:02 PM

KWICKO

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Reading the original post: Pulling ads because the platform they're on is also being used to express complaints makes no kind of advertising sense. Don't you want to try to counterbalance the negative message?

Wulf, it looks to me like Kwicko's information was more recent than 2005, and it says that only the Tacoma is built in Mexico.

Now there may be something to be said about the workers the plants in question are employing in America at what wages, and possibly valid comparisons of the conditions of those factories and workers to the Mexican factory, but we'd have to find the data. It could represent a shift in company policy Re: manufacturing and testing. But clearly it's not because they're building cars in Mexico. One factory in Mexico is not some sort of virus that suddenly makes engineers hundreds of miles away incompetent or lowers morale or something.

Bingo. SOMETHING happened at Toyota, but we don't yet know what. What we DO know is that it ISN'T because they hired Mexicans. That was the point I was trying to hammer into Wulfie's head, because he seems to immediately go to the quickest, easiest stereotype his brain latches onto whenever any topic is up for discussion.

Electronics are suspected in at least SOME of the problems. If Toyota is anything like most other carmakers, they didn't manufacture the electronic units they're using; they generally contract them out, with a specific "mission statement" that the parts must meet. Honda generally uses TEC and NEC electronic components. The TEC ones are generally accepted as being less reliable and more failure-prone than the NEC ones (both companies often made the same units). Similarly, braking components are generally outsourced. I had an '84 Honda Civic 1300, and for just that year and trim model, THERE WERE FOUR DIFFERENT BRAKE CALIPER MANUFACTURERS USED BY THE FACTORY.

So what went wrong? Was it a manufacturing defect on some of the components which Toyota didn't catch in QA/QC? Was it an error in the original work order that didn't set the correct parameters for the parts being designed? Was it a design defect? Or is it just an unforeseen confluence of events that means that "x" number of failures have to occur at the same time for this sequence to ensue?

THAT is what we don't know at the moment, and what we really need to find out.

But no matter what, it's on Toyota to make it right, which they seem to be trying their damnedest to do.

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Thursday, February 11, 2010 3:05 PM

KWICKO

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Toyota's troubles are getting so much more air time because you got folks like Transportation Secretary LaHood and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hounding them in press conferences and committee meetings at every turn.

Think the government wants folk to stop buying Toyota and start buying GM and Chrysler much?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

Changing the subject again, Grampa? And heading off into PN-world in the process! Kudos on the two-fer! You've managed to turn a product recall into an evil plot by the bad ol' left-wing gubmint.

Shouldn't you really be hailing this as a victory of the free markets, in that Toyota stepped up to do the right thing, like a responsible company should?

Or are you saying that free markets really DON'T do a good job of self-regulation, and NEED the government to step in and tell them what to do when their products aren't up to snuff?

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Thursday, February 11, 2010 3:49 PM

KWICKO

Quote:
I am very very damned tempted to buy a Toyota out of sheer malicious spite.

And it might be a great time to buy one, too! Prices are low, quality is still high.

Me, I've never been one to worry about "unintended acceleration". Why? Because I know where the brake pedal is, and I know that there's never been a production car made that was capable of overpowering its own brakes. My crappy little CRX does 0-60 in 6.5 seconds (stock, it was 8.5); it will do 60-0 in about 3.5.

Too bad Toyota doesn't have anything that interests me... :( I did like the MR2 (and even the later MR-Spyder), but those are long dead.

The Matrix isn't horrible, for what it is, but you can get a Pontiac Vibe for less, since Pontiac is done for as a brand. And the Vibe is built in the same plant, by the same workers, as the Matrix.

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Thursday, February 11, 2010 3:49 PM

GINOBIFFARONI

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Toyota's troubles are getting so much more air time because you got folks like Transportation Secretary LaHood and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hounding them in press conferences and committee meetings at every turn.

Think the government wants folk to stop buying Toyota and start buying GM and Chrysler much?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

Changing the subject again, Grampa? And heading off into PN-world in the process! Kudos on the two-fer! You've managed to turn a product recall into an evil plot by the bad ol' left-wing gubmint.

Shouldn't you really be hailing this as a victory of the free markets, in that Toyota stepped up to do the right thing, like a responsible company should?

Or are you saying that free markets really DON'T do a good job of self-regulation, and NEED the government to step in and tell them what to do when their products aren't up to snuff?

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

Not only did Toyota step up to address the problems rather quickly

( I suspect GM and Ford would have tried harder to duck the blame )

But this reminds me of something I seen in one of their commercials

%80 of Toyota's sold in Canada in the last twenty years are still on the road today

Can Ford or GM claim that ? Do they even try for that ?

I'd have to say not

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