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From: C. E. White on 8 Mar 2010 17:57
Toyota charts upset rivals

BY TOM WALSH
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

Toyota's recall troubles might appear at first to be an occasion for great
glee among Ford, General Motors and Chrysler, a chance to steal back
long-lost customers from their biggest Asian competitor.

And momentarily, at least, there is that opportunity. February sales numbers
showed a decline of 9% for Toyota while the Detroit Three -- especially a
surging Ford -- posted gains.

This column, however, is about what the late radio legend Paul Harvey would
call "the rest of the story."

Detroit auto folks are privately fuming over what they see as calculated,
misleading attempts by Toyota to deflect attention from its own failings by
trashing the quality records of Ford, GM and Chrysler.

This rancor over Toyota's PR tactics is blowing another hole in the already
shaky solidarity of the Alliance of American Automobile Manufacturers, which
includes Detroit and foreign firms, just as a restless U.S. Congress looks
poised to unleash a wave of costly new safety rules on the entire industry.

None of Detroit's top guns wants to publicly bash Toyota now, because (a)
Detroit still doesn't have much credibility on Capitol Hill, and (b) they
might just look like whiners grousing about Toyota.

Bad blood brewing

But behind the scenes, Detroit loyalists accuse Toyota of "lobbyist
malpractice" and say things like, "It's tearing the whole industry apart."

Here's why: Just as top Toyota honchos were to testify in Washington, D.C.,
about a spate of recalls and safety complaints, Toyota sent a set of charts
under the headline "Automotive Recalls in Perspective" to offices of key
congressional committee members. One striking bar graph showed that Ford, GM
and Chrysler were the overwhelming leaders in U.S. safety recall campaigns
during the past decade, each with around triple the recalls of Toyota.

So what's wrong with that, if the numbers were correct?

Beside the point

The charts were totally irrelevant to the point of the hearings, that's
what.

Toyota was hauled before Congress to explain why it took so long to address
specific safety complaints, whether it was hiding things, why U.S.
regulators had to prod Toyota into action -- not to compare a decade's worth
of industrywide recall data.

Indeed, Toyota sending out those charts was precisely the type of
obfuscation and misdirection that's gotten the automaker into such hot
water.

Meanwhile, as Congress makes noise about mandating brake-override technology
and adding other costly new rules, the Auto Alliance, the industry's
joint-lobbying group, is less than united.

Honda and Nissan are not members; Toyota and the German firms are.

The Detroit Three, to varying degrees in this tough economy, are questioning
the value of the multimillion-dollar checks they've written to support the
alliance in years past.

Now the bad blood over Toyota's tactics threatens to further split the
industry, even on issues like safety and the upcoming cap-and-trade debates
on energy and environmental policy.

From: C. E. White on 8 Mar 2010 18:01
http://www.freep.com/article/20100307/COL06/3070535/Toyota-charts-upset-rivals

From: Mike Hunter on 8 Mar 2010 18:51
Recalls are not the problem, it is the way they are handled that counts.
As you know most recalls are started by warranty claims from the
dealerships. not customer complaints to the NHTSA. If there are too many,
management WANTS to know because if the CAUSE can be found the problem can
be corrected in cars coming from the assembly plant. It is a mater of
economics, the more that go out with a problem that has developed, the more
they will need to repair and the more bad press. In reality few of the cars
recalled will present with the problem, but the later a problem appears the
more cars will need to be recalled to see it those cars are involved.

Toyotas problem has always been the way Toyota handles their problems.
They will issue TSBs and those cars that present the problem at a dealership
will be corrected but those that are NOT serviced at a dealership will not
because Toyota does not want to notify all customers if they can avoid doing
so. What we did was make the repair and add something like "Factory Service
update completed, not charge" to the bill.

Of all of the brands we sold Toyota was always the hardest company to get
anything from after the warranty expired. When you do that you WILL get
more complaints going to the NHTSA, not fewer. Customers are not as
concerned about having a problem, the are more concerned about who pays,
than what went wrong.

Toyotas sludge problem was a good example of why that is not the proper
approach because of their attitude that our cars do not fail, it must be the
customers fault for not doing the proper maintenance. As you know that
came back to bite them.

I have owned a lot of cars in my time but very few cars that were involved
in a recall and never was one of my cars shown to have the defect for which
it was recalled.

All manufactures today are making great cars, but the law of average says
around 2% may fail at some point, even Toyotas.



"C. E. White" <cewhite3(a)mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:rfednR6J-4tUHQjWnZ2dnUVZ_r-dnZ2d(a)earthlink.com...
> Toyota charts upset rivals
>
> BY TOM WALSH
> FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
>
> Toyota's recall troubles might appear at first to be an occasion for great
> glee among Ford, General Motors and Chrysler, a chance to steal back
> long-lost customers from their biggest Asian competitor.
>
> And momentarily, at least, there is that opportunity. February sales
> numbers showed a decline of 9% for Toyota while the Detroit Three --
> especially a surging Ford -- posted gains.
>
> This column, however, is about what the late radio legend Paul Harvey
> would call "the rest of the story."
>
> Detroit auto folks are privately fuming over what they see as calculated,
> misleading attempts by Toyota to deflect attention from its own failings
> by trashing the quality records of Ford, GM and Chrysler.
>
> This rancor over Toyota's PR tactics is blowing another hole in the
> already shaky solidarity of the Alliance of American Automobile
> Manufacturers, which includes Detroit and foreign firms, just as a
> restless U.S. Congress looks poised to unleash a wave of costly new safety
> rules on the entire industry.
>
> None of Detroit's top guns wants to publicly bash Toyota now, because (a)
> Detroit still doesn't have much credibility on Capitol Hill, and (b) they
> might just look like whiners grousing about Toyota.
>
> Bad blood brewing
>
> But behind the scenes, Detroit loyalists accuse Toyota of "lobbyist
> malpractice" and say things like, "It's tearing the whole industry apart."
>
> Here's why: Just as top Toyota honchos were to testify in Washington,
> D.C., about a spate of recalls and safety complaints, Toyota sent a set of
> charts under the headline "Automotive Recalls in Perspective" to offices
> of key congressional committee members. One striking bar graph showed that
> Ford, GM and Chrysler were the overwhelming leaders in U.S. safety recall
> campaigns during the past decade, each with around triple the recalls of
> Toyota.
>
> So what's wrong with that, if the numbers were correct?
>
> Beside the point
>
> The charts were totally irrelevant to the point of the hearings, that's
> what.
>
> Toyota was hauled before Congress to explain why it took so long to
> address specific safety complaints, whether it was hiding things, why U.S.
> regulators had to prod Toyota into action -- not to compare a decade's
> worth of industrywide recall data.
>
> Indeed, Toyota sending out those charts was precisely the type of
> obfuscation and misdirection that's gotten the automaker into such hot
> water.
>
> Meanwhile, as Congress makes noise about mandating brake-override
> technology and adding other costly new rules, the Auto Alliance, the
> industry's joint-lobbying group, is less than united.
>
> Honda and Nissan are not members; Toyota and the German firms are.
>
> The Detroit Three, to varying degrees in this tough economy, are
> questioning the value of the multimillion-dollar checks they've written to
> support the alliance in years past.
>
> Now the bad blood over Toyota's tactics threatens to further split the
> industry, even on issues like safety and the upcoming cap-and-trade
> debates on energy and environmental policy.


From: Mike Hunter on 8 Mar 2010 18:53
Really? I hope you were wearing you aluminum foil hat when you posted that
comment. ;)


"dbu''" <nospam(a)nobama.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:FNCdnX4p48XNGAjWnZ2dnUVZ_hqdnZ2d(a)giganews.com...
> In article <rfednR6J-4tUHQjWnZ2dnUVZ_r-dnZ2d(a)earthlink.com>,
> "C. E. White" <cewhite3(a)mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>> Toyota charts upset rivals
>>
>> BY TOM WALSH
>> FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
>>
>> Toyota's recall troubles might appear at first to be an occasion for
>> great
>> glee among Ford, General Motors and Chrysler, a chance to steal back
>> long-lost customers from their biggest Asian competitor.
>>
>> And momentarily, at least, there is that opportunity. February sales
>> numbers
>> showed a decline of 9% for Toyota while the Detroit Three -- especially a
>> surging Ford -- posted gains.
>>
>> This column, however, is about what the late radio legend Paul Harvey
>> would
>> call "the rest of the story."
>>
>> Detroit auto folks are privately fuming over what they see as calculated,
>> misleading attempts by Toyota to deflect attention from its own failings
>> by
>> trashing the quality records of Ford, GM and Chrysler.
>>
>> This rancor over Toyota's PR tactics is blowing another hole in the
>> already
>> shaky solidarity of the Alliance of American Automobile Manufacturers,
>> which
>> includes Detroit and foreign firms, just as a restless U.S. Congress
>> looks
>> poised to unleash a wave of costly new safety rules on the entire
>> industry.
>>
>> None of Detroit's top guns wants to publicly bash Toyota now, because (a)
>> Detroit still doesn't have much credibility on Capitol Hill, and (b) they
>> might just look like whiners grousing about Toyota.
>>
>> Bad blood brewing
>>
>> But behind the scenes, Detroit loyalists accuse Toyota of "lobbyist
>> malpractice" and say things like, "It's tearing the whole industry
>> apart."
>>
>> Here's why: Just as top Toyota honchos were to testify in Washington,
>> D.C.,
>> about a spate of recalls and safety complaints, Toyota sent a set of
>> charts
>> under the headline "Automotive Recalls in Perspective" to offices of key
>> congressional committee members. One striking bar graph showed that Ford,
>> GM
>> and Chrysler were the overwhelming leaders in U.S. safety recall
>> campaigns
>> during the past decade, each with around triple the recalls of Toyota.
>>
>> So what's wrong with that, if the numbers were correct?
>>
>> Beside the point
>>
>> The charts were totally irrelevant to the point of the hearings, that's
>> what.
>>
>> Toyota was hauled before Congress to explain why it took so long to
>> address
>> specific safety complaints, whether it was hiding things, why U.S.
>> regulators had to prod Toyota into action -- not to compare a decade's
>> worth
>> of industrywide recall data.
>>
>> Indeed, Toyota sending out those charts was precisely the type of
>> obfuscation and misdirection that's gotten the automaker into such hot
>> water.
>>
>> Meanwhile, as Congress makes noise about mandating brake-override
>> technology
>> and adding other costly new rules, the Auto Alliance, the industry's
>> joint-lobbying group, is less than united.
>>
>> Honda and Nissan are not members; Toyota and the German firms are.
>>
>> The Detroit Three, to varying degrees in this tough economy, are
>> questioning
>> the value of the multimillion-dollar checks they've written to support
>> the
>> alliance in years past.
>>
>> Now the bad blood over Toyota's tactics threatens to further split the
>> industry, even on issues like safety and the upcoming cap-and-trade
>> debates
>> on energy and environmental policy.
>
> Toyota was not "hauled before congress" They came voluntarily.
>
> Have grave doubts about the credibility of this article.
> --
>


From: Mike Hunter on 8 Mar 2010 18:56
Than Kia for sure


"Vinny From NYC" <vinny(a)qzyqzy.net> wrote in message
news:9c3bp559as9nslqhrnom8k4lr1bjdnv2ff(a)4ax.com...
> On Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:16:31 -0600, dbu'' <nospam(a)nobama.com.invalid>
> wrote Re Re: Toyota charts upset rivals:
>
>>Toyota was not "hauled before congress" They came voluntarily.
>>
>>Have grave doubts about the credibility of this article.
>
> It doesn't matter. Toyota still makes a better car.
>
> signed
> A Focus owner


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