I give up.

Okay...you win. Toyota wasn't just involved in one of the biggest recalls in automotive history. They didn't just have to install a shim in many of their vehicles accelerator pedals. And their CEO himself didn't recently implement new procedures for monitoring and assuring quality and admit to struggling with growth.

In your world evidently none of this happened.

Just for giggles? I happen to be aware of the report you site. But that has nothing to do with the RECALL that DID HAPPEN. If anyone needs to listen to the news...and NOT just the news you want to hear...it's you...

But that's okay...I give. My opinion is my opinion and you evidently can't stand any criticism of Toyota. That's cool....

 

I don't know what people have against unions. They were created and still help protect the middle and lower classes from unfair working practices and low wages. Would you rather we return to the time when children worked mines and 12 hour shifts are normal? I don't know where all this anti-union sentiment comes from. If you need further convincing just look up some woody guthrie lyrics. It doesn't get more 'American' than him.

And to the point, American cars have poor reliability because they are poorly designed, and not designed to last. And it gets at my nerve when I hear the phrase "cars designed for the american market". Are we supposed to be fat lazy retards? I've live in countries where 4X4 cars are a necessity not a 'fad' or a luxury. Guess what type of cars they use? Toyotas and Nissan trucks, and not the full size POS trucks we get here. We don't need those that crap and we never did. Nobody does. Buy a freight truck if you need to haul crap. Or put it in your FIT! I can already hear someone saying "but what about my boat or my horses?" boats belong in the water and horses belong at the farm.
I don't know what it is with this thread and ranting, but it gets under my skin.

PS Its not all bad news though and kudos to Ford for seeing the light (hopefully) and pushing their small car line here in the US!

 

During 30 years of trucking I've been on U.S. auto plants and Jap auto plants. Totally different work ethic.

 

America's bullshit labor unions.

And when the union protects incompetant workers at all costs...they are not doing any good for the society or economy.

 

Ya gotta love drinking out of a brown paper bag & toking on your lunch break! One would have to postulate that the quality of the employee and the employee's awareness is directly related to the quality of the product.

 

This looks like something that would've been posted back in the 80's if there were an internet back then. The quality of our cars is right there with the Japanese, come on!

I do agree about unions though, they suck and why....? This isn't the first time this news channel has done this, I grew up in Detroit and have seen this before, pathetic! Those guys aren't going to be fired either, watch! Rob Wolcek (spelling) is an awesome reporter, he gets in everyone's faces back home.

I tell people this, play word association...ready, go....quality small car:

Civic, Corolla

Quality mid-size car....Accord/Camry

Hate to say it but its true and you wanna know something else, if you only had $2500 to buy a car that had to last you for a good year, would you buy a Taurus, Malibu, Concorde....or an Accord or Camry? Case closed, period!

I'm just glad we're finally getting our crap together back home, now they just need to hire me, a person born of a Dad who worked for GM for 35 years (rest his soul) and had a great work ethic and didn't miss work and put in long hours to support his family and did it the right way. I'd do that job for half of what those guys get paid, seriously!

 

The real truth is automotive recalls happen all the time. This one was just blown way out of proportion thanks to frantic Toyota drivers dialing 911 for help who supposedly thought their car had a mind of its own. That always makes for a good news story and the press is going to capitalize on it, no matter how silly or unreal it is. So if you really want to believe Toyota quality has gone down hill just because somebody reaches for their cell phone and dials 911 instead doing the simple thing such as shift the tranny into neutral and perhaps take a quick look to see which pedal they have their foot on be my guest.

 

I've added this link in 2 other car forum I visit, thanks.

 

There are still people who believe that a Japanese car is the death of Detroit. I went to a car show last year in a very rural area on the 4th
of July and had men walking by shaking their heads pointing at my car and saying," Thats what killed Detroit." It was funny because I was parked beside a 1964 Chevy Wagon and a Nova! There were only two imports at the show me and a 60 something VW Bug. My first Ford was recalled for an exploding gas tank and the tranny went out at 5,000 miles. I've owned the Fit since 2007 and knock on wood nothing but routine maintenance and just two recalls. The car still runs great and I will never drive anything else but Honda from now on. My cousin is still driving a Honda with over 200,000 miles on it and going strong. Of course he has the S2K in the garage to play with.

Cat

 

Yeah, that's more or less what I said in my first post.

Toyota has struggled with it's growth and experienced a lot of quality issues lately. All automakers have recalls.

 

You had magically foreseen Honda's future problems.

Are you sure you don't drive a DeLorean DMC-12?

...That kinda looks like this one?




As a matter of fact, I actually saw a real life replica of one of these rolling down the highway near the arkansas oklahoma border around december time. I don't think I was hallucinating. I was on a long roadtrip from NoVA to SoCal. I just remember hours of boredom and 3 seconds of "look there's a time machine delorean!" as it zoomed by in the opposite lane. I was just hoping it would reach 88 mph so that I could see sweet-ass flaming skid marks.

Shit, now I psyched myself up to want a DeLorean. If I save enough cash one day I might be tempted.

DeLorean Motor Company - Home

Now back to the discussion at hand...
I'm glad that Honda handled this at an early stage when only a handful of cars have developed problems and none of them (that we know of at least) caused major safety issues.

Good discussion from a different angle in this post BTW.

 

I remember a quote from a former GM CEO, "General Motors isn't in business to make cars, they are in business to make money" If the top executives weren't making millions a year and the golden parachute retirement bonuses they could afford to build a decent product.

 

I worked at Chrysler (in a finance area) for 3 years in the late 80s. Senior executives got a new car to drive every 4 months- and this benefit wasn't even taxable because they were 'product evaluators' who were supposed to fill out a survey about each car. Kind of nice to have a 4wd in the winter and a convertible in the summer.

I suggested they make these guys drive leaky convertibles in the winter. I also suggested that instead of driving new cars they make the executives drive ten year old cars. Then they'd see what their customers see, instead of living in luxury and not having any idea what their cars are actually like. Oh, and maybe have to bring their cars to dealers anonymously instead of being treated as royalty. I was an employee (25 years old) and went to a Dodge dealer to buy a car and they wouldn't even let me test-drive one (apparently they didn't think their cars worked in the rain). I bought an Acura instead, and whenever anybody said something about disloyalty I simply said I was doing exactly what our great leader Lee Iacocca said to do: "If you can find a better-built car, buy it." I did and I did and shut up.

 

"Toyota wasn't just involved in one of the biggest recalls in automotive history. They didn't just have to install a shim in many of their vehicles accelerator pedals."

As time goes on it appears more and more that they were forced into a recall for a non-existant problem. I don't like Toyota myself, because the cars are just pretty "Blah" (boooooring). However, their quality and reliability is at the top of the industry.

My first brand new car, a Ford product, fell apart in 15,000 miles. It had an engine, apparently designed for low RPM truck usage, installed in a car turning much higher RPM than a truck when cruising down the thruway.

Anyway, blaming American Car Quality on Union membership is somehow lacking in reality. I worked for an organization for 33 years where union membership was up to the individual. The vast majority of employees became union members solely to protect themselves from extremely poor lower and middle management decisions. The decision making processes were astoundingly poor. They often put the employees at physical risk and were often made at whim, without bothering to learn the issues.

Currently, I work for a company that prides itself on being non-union. They have established practices that demonstrate that they value their employees and make decisions accordingly. Not perfect, but so much better. BTW, I have better benefits and working conditions at this job.

So, please consider that leadership drives the results of any company. If employees are stoned at work, you might want to ask why? Is the hiring process that lax or are the employees driven to it as a better alternative?

GM started a company called "Saturn" based upon a number of successful manufacturing processes. Those processes gave a lot of the responsibility of quality control to the employees. Slowly, step-by-step, GM took that away from the employees and they become like every other American car company and have now gone away.

Per Car&Driver magazine, Ford had an office called the "Perceived Quality Department" when they once took a tour.

In my personal opinion, if the US car manufacturers spent as much time and effort on genuine quality control and development as they do in 'pinching pennies' they could produce a world class product. Unfortunately, they look to save a penny here and there and produce less than desireable vehicles.

John

 

This evening I had the pleasure of sitting next to a CPA. He sort of had a conscious [of sorts], but it's those guys who's task it is to figure out the 'bottom line' at any cost to increase the shareholder's portfolio. All the tricks of the trade are in the cards they deal with every day.

Which one was it that always said "Quality is Job 1" - oh yea, FondOnRoadDead.

EDIT: Here ya go: 93 Ford Quality Is Job 1 Ad

 

It's not that focusing on the bottom line is bad, it's that short-run thinking is bad. Focusing on the bottom line but considering the long-run bottom line probably means not screwing over your customers.

 

"It's not that focusing on the bottom line is bad, it's that short-run thinking is bad. Focusing on the bottom line but considering the long-run bottom line probably means not screwing over your customers."

Or, your employees.

John

 

If you think the quality coming out of the Big 3 is bad now you should have seen it before they were threatened by Japan auto makers. Before they had any competition they were truly bad. The Big 3 did stub their toe in the early 70's when they should have recognized Japan as a threat but they thought of the Japanese products as junk and continued to build their crap till they fell behind. Since then they have been improving but they haven't caught up yet. If you use your library, check out a book called "Wheels". When the employer has to buy the employee an alarm clock hoping they will get to work on time is a clue with what's wrong with the American automobile industry.

 

<LOL> My first new car was a 1970 Ford. The second was a 1971 Datsun that went 25 mph faster and got 5 miles per gallon better. I still own the second one.

The first one was probably re-melted to make Yugos.........

John

 

whaap Remember those early Datsuns? Sheet metal would rust through in the rain. Not as bad as the old International Scout though.