Toyota recalls more vehicles than sold in 2006

I never thought I'd see the day Dave H argues that perception is more important than reality. o No: Next thing you know, Dave's going to be running for Governor. :grin:

As someone who only buys used cars, I guess this doesn't bother me. I'll keep buying all those crappy, American-made lemons you're all talking about. My current daily driver is over 20 years old. For the last 15 years I've been driving Olds G-bodies from the mid-80s -- a time period many America-bashers claim is the low point of big-3 quality. uzzled:

 

Nah, too much pride....Like to think for myself and live with the consequences.

 

It's been my . . . uh, perception, that many cars of the mid-70s were the biggest turkeys. By the 80s, Detroit had its first answers to the quality and fuel efficiency issues. Lots were solid, like the full-size cars introduced in 1977. But then there were the X-cars . . . overall, I don't think Detroit's cars were so bad in the early 1980s.

 

J cars kinda sucked. 80-82 Tbird/Cougars sucked. 83-87's were really neat. Wasn't too excited about the EXP/LN-7's.

GM's last RWD cars (both G bodies and B/C) were really good cars. Both gone by the end of the 80's.

Too bad Olds gave up on the performance market in the 80's with the G bodies and didn't offer a better HP engine package than the 307 or 305 Chevy. A 403 would have been nice, a Turbo 3.8l like the Grand National in the 83-84 HUrst and 85-87 442's as an option would have been dynamite and kept Olds in the mix with the performance crowd. People today are too young to have grown up with quick, fun to drive Olds Cutlasses unless their Dads were into the A cars of the 64-72. (your father's Oldsmobiles).

But if they had, then we wouldn't have Saturns today. ou:

 

I loved all 3 of my EXPs........

 

I don't really need to add to the pile-on, but agree with all the above about US products vs. foreign in quality, and lack of parity of trade laws. Diego is showing his age....he was obviously not around to see, that when the gas crunch hit in the '70's, American companies were making the cars that met he demand of Americans. The foreign carmakers were making vehicles that met their own demands(where gas is sold in Litres at gallon prices). The same thing is repeating itself with these huge SUV's everyone was buying, only now there is actually less gas, haha.
I will not buy a foreign car, and even ticked off a few dealers when I told them I wouldn't buy an American truck with a Mexican motor in it.They tried that old routine about well, what IS a foreign car anymore....they are making them here now, bah blah blah. I eventually got what I wanted, but shame on them for making it so hard to find a truly American car.(I consider Canadian parts OK).
I would, however, like to kick all of the American executives who are sending our jobs overseas, square in the pants(front of the pants preferred).

 

Was that one of the early ones with no back seat to go along with no engine and a horrible transmission? The A/C compressor too more hp to operate than the car at 60MPH, and there wasn't enough power for both.

Or one of the later ones, which was just another Escort 2 door with a fastback that is using the name because the total failure of the first one was embarassing to a high ego Ford Product Planner and he put on a tantrum.

The first one had a back seat when it went to the auto show, but after a guy got knocked out in the back seat when someone closed the hatch, they quickly (overnight) had the cars reworked right in the display to eliminate it asnd carpetted over that area. The LN-7 had enough head clearance, but they decided to make that a 2 seater also so they could use the reference to the 2 seat Tbirds of 55-57 in the marketing campaign. Too hard to explain why one did and the other didn't.

The ones in the mid 80's were OK.

 

Hi, Dan, I am unsure how a '73 Regal was meeting the demands of Americans? It weighed more than its predecessor. It got worse mileage. It had worse acceleration. Its only saving grace was its handling.

Meanwhile, one could buy a European or Japanese sedan from that period (ok, 1973 is stretching it a bit for the Japanese) and have a car that seated 5 comfortably, had an OHC engine, 4-wheel discs, and so forth. It's not true that American companies were meeting the demand of the public; instead, the public was clueless to what was good for them because they were being led by a complacent automotive industry.

As much as the '70s sucked, I also think GM built some of its best vehicles. The big cars that came out in '71 were tanks. And the big cars from '77 were reasonably reliable and lasted forever.

 

Didn't Pontiac offer a sedan that seated five comfortably and had an OHC engine in.....what......the late 1960's? Good car, not a big seller though.

In the bashing of U.S. automakers for not offering economy before the imports in the early '70's, let's not forget the Ford and Mercury small bodies equipped with the six clyinder and the Mopar slant six in the small body. Very reliable and good economy.

Many still on the road today. Casey was driving his '72 Slant Six daily 140 miles round trip just a couple of years ago..

 

But, Brian, we are talking about the '70s, the gas crisis, and how the Big 3 lost their footing. The Pontiac OHC didn't sell because it didn't meet the market's needs at the time. And while the Maverick/Comets and especially any Mopar with the Leaning Tower of Power are great examples of economy in a time when the market demanded it, the fact is they did not offer the quality that many people discovered with Japanese cars - especially Hondas.

I never knew calling a spade a spade was "America-bashing". With Ford's recent record announcement, I would have hoped that they've had enough time to get their act together . . . but it seems this is not the case. I have nothing but good things to hope for them, but when they can't perform, I'm gonna call 'em out whether people want to blame me instead or not.

 

Let's not give the foreign (Jap and Europe) automakers too much credit for offering the US what we wanted in the '70s. They offered us what they were currently making: small cars with good fuel economy. They were making those because that's what their home markets were demanding (and still do).

It's too bad the Big 3 got caught off guard by the shift in demand in the '70s. But you can't really blame them for that; as others have pointed out, Americans in general had never embraced fuel economy much throughout the 70-year history of the automobile. Given a choice, and the funds to buy it, Americans always chose the larger, more luxurious, more powerful car. The whole "gas crunch" thing caused a major -- very rapid -- shift in demand. Too rapid for any automaker (domestic or foreign) to respond to. Whoever already had the product got the sales.

I guarantee that if gas prices dropped to 50 cents/gal today, any automaker that is only producing econo-boxes wuold find themselves in dire straits for about 5 years until they could come out with something bigger.

I still say the Quality issue is all about perception and an individual's definition of just what Quality is. I guess I define it differently than the people who drive Hondas and Toyotas. o No: My parents always had a variety of foreign and domestic cars, and I can't say I ever noticed the foreign ones being higher quality. Speaking of Slant 6s, perhaps the best car my family ever owned was a '64 Dodge Dart wagon with slant 6. If we still had that in 1979, I bet my dad would've never bought that Toyota Corolla wagon, and I bet the Dart would've been at least as reliable.

 

First of all you had said:

"It's not true that American companies were meeting the demand of the public; instead, the public was clueless to what was good for them because they were being led by a complacent automotive industry."

I responded by pointing out how the public has had choices in the U.S. brands that included fuel economy all along. Even prior to the Pontiac OHC six. Hardley seems like they were being "led by a complacent automotive industry" in regard to fuel economy.

Secondly, I never said "America-bashing"

I said "In the bashing of U.S. automakers"

 

The only credit they deserve is being at the right place at the right time, not to mention offering quality that was above that being offered by the Big 3 . . . at least the Japanese. I don't think the Fiats, Lancias, Rovers, etc. offered better reliability than their American counterparts, but they did produce some fabulous cars for their time - especially the Rover.

But it's a lot more than having a portfolio that the public demanded. It's about quality, right? If Honda didn't offer superb engineering with their CVCC engine and great quality (aside of later rust issues) with the Civic, Honda would never have climbed up the ladder the way they did.

Now on to Brian's . . .

Very true, but we're talking about the '70s here, which is when the shift in demand and quality started to happen. The Corvair, for one, was an excellent car and they sold a gazillion of 'em (at least through '66 or so), but it was not a car that the general American consumer wanted. A European would be more likely to appreciate its size and engineering.

The economy will dictate people's desire for thrift - the 1958 recession is another good example of that. But what happened in 1973 make people realize that there was another world out there where vehicles didn't have trim fall off. And that's why we have Accords and Camrys leading car sales in America.

 

With Toyota having major recalls, Tundra's being the latest for ball joints, you have brought us full circle.

 

Brian, you're acting like there's never been a recall for Japanese cars before.

Of course, recalls have no bearing on the overall quality of a car. I'm still waiting for Chevrolet to build a Camry, albeit one with distinct American character and style. It can be done because I know Detroit has talented people, but the engineers need to have more influence in the Motor City for that to happen.

 

Certainly no argument with the last statement here, but I do not think Detroit has the talented people anymore to do that. Somewhere in the 90's, the process and P.C. became more important than the product.
I don't think the Big 3 could design and develop a car like the Nissan Altima, any number of Toyotas, and anything with Honda or Lexus on it. Driven an Acura TL? They still do an excellent job on big full size trucks (even though they're abandoning the smaller Ranger size market), but haven't done a good small or medium sized car by themselves since the 80's. The original Taurus is a good example of that. Contrast that with the P.O.S. that replaced it in 1996. Even the Hybrid SUV's and CUV's are done outside the US for Ford (Mazda and Volvo.) When Ford went big with the Explorer, good thing Mazda was ready with a RAV 4 sized car called the Escape. Think that's their #2 seller behind the F150. And it's based on Mazda 626 platform. I have one, love it.

We started questioning why we couldn't get any funding or even management interest in cars back in the late 80's and 90's, everything was going for trucks. Great with cheap gas, disastrous without that. Sound familiar to the 70's and big cars? It should.

If you can't predict the commodity futures price of gasoline 5-10 years out and want to stay in this business, you'd better have product that covers you both ways with a full line.

Let the stylists style, the engineers engineer, the marketers market, and the manufacturers manufacture. Shoot every Product planner, timing clerk, quality analyst, HR kiss up, and staff person who doesn't directly support the needs of those basic functions. Right now it loks ike they've drained all teir resources in the first 4 basic categories , but the bureaucracy bloat continues to build.

Mazda's doing all of Ford's smaller cars and Volvo's doing the larger ones in the future. That is very good for the consumer and buyer as long as GM and Ford stay out of the way and let them do what they're good at. I see signs that they haven't learned that yet.

 

Dave, you don't know how refreshing it is to hear an MBA say that! I don't know any that think like you. Heck, I know too many engineers who think process and PC are more important than product.

 

Brian, you are my new hero

 

Outside the U.S. and Canada the foreign car makers rely on 3rd world wages and rediculous work conditions (NONE) to make big profits. The big 3 just can't compete with the wage their workers make. I think it is more of a human rights issue if anything.:blast: :blast:
I'll always buy big 3 just to support the U.S and Canada. Every tool I buy if it costs a little more if it is made in the U.S. or Canada it's sold..
Ray

 

Ray, do you have any source to back up your claim?

I'm sure the same thing has been claimed by the sneakers you wear, no?