29 Votes

Should Toyota Really Be The "Gold Standard" for Quality?

PlanoA4 submitted on 1/29/2007 Official Bell & Ross Timestamp: 1:46:58 PM

38 user comments | Category: Spy Shots | Source: | SOURCE: www.busrep.co.za

Toyota Motor's gold standard reputation for quality has been a vital ingredient in powering sales.

But as Toyota expands and overtakes its main US competitors, its cherished status is losing a bit of lustre.

Last week Toyota recalled 500 000 pick-up trucks and 4x4s in the US to correct a possible flaw in the suspension that may make the vehicles hard to steer. The recall was similar to another by Toyota in 2005 covering the same defect in about 800 000 Tundras and Sequoias.

This time, it knew of 11 accidents that might be related to the defect, including six injuries, said Bill Kwong, a Toyota spokesperson.

Has the most copied and most envied car maker of the past 20 years suddenly lost its way? Most quality experts say no. Toyota has had recalls before, as have all car makers. In fact, the number of vehicles the company recalled last year plunged from the year earlier.

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Vorsprung durch Technik
— PlanoA4 (View Profile)

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Well I gotta keep up my reputation...
— PlanoA4 (View Profile)

Posted on 1/29/2007 2:45:10 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 2

"Toyota is the best role model the entire auto industry could have. If not Toyota, then who?"

I think Honda is a worthy competitor to that title.
— lexusis350 (View Profile)

Posted on 1/29/2007 6:09:25 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 2

lexus - I second that motion.
— courtstone (View Profile)

Posted on 1/30/2007 11:27:09 AM | reply to this comment | Votes: 2

i absolutely agree that Honda is just as good if not better at being a "Role Model"
— DallasMR2 (View Profile)

Posted on 1/30/2007 11:30:37 AM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1

I agree. Honda is an angel.
— S4cabriofoxone (View Profile)

Posted on 1/30/2007 6:03:50 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1

True , true !!!!!!
— raschitakochangwenya (View Profile)

Posted on 1/29/2007 2:07:07 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 0

Heck no!

With all the recall they had, I don't think so.
Didn't I read that Mazda and Honda did better this around on the reviews?
— silverarrow2 (View Profile)

Posted on 1/29/2007 3:14:44 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1

Any article about Toyota that quotes CNW has no credibility with me. What is Art Spinella's agenda? He clearly hates Toyota. Is he bankrolled by Detroit?
— 1970toyotamarc (View Profile)

Posted on 1/29/2007 3:30:55 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 4

Basically when you are on top, like Toyota is, everybody will take a pot shot at you.

Very easy to do.

It is human nature to question those that are held up as number one, and to hold them to a higher standard.

If Suzuki we number one and they had a recall of say 10% of their cars the press would be on top of them too.
— Agent009 (View Profile)

Posted on 1/29/2007 3:37:56 PM | | Votes: 2

it don't matter.

toyotas are BULLETPROOF.

— XYZZ (View Profile)

Posted on 1/30/2007 5:39:01 AM | | Votes: 2

Spinella is a clown. Although I don't like hybrids, I had to question his "study" last year that had claims that the life cycle energy usage of a Prius was greater than a Hummer H2.

Batteries, motors, electric cable and all the other things that go into a hybrid should make it more energy intensive to build, but over the entire life of the vehicle?? Come on!

He also had different numbers for the xA and xB and they are the same platform with the same engine...

— AE86 (View Profile)

Posted on 1/30/2007 8:52:30 PM | | Votes: 1

I wanted to write a lot but after I did I thought that four words would answer the question, "Should Toyota Really Be The 'Gold Standard' for Quality?" easily.

Yes, no explanation necessary.
— kart1 (View Profile)

Posted on 1/29/2007 5:22:30 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1

in my dictionary, the last i checked toyota had 3 meanings Quality, reliability, and performance. lol
— trd1 (View Profile)

Posted on 1/29/2007 6:03:33 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: -2

performance?
— 1995e34 (View Profile)

Posted on 1/29/2007 6:45:43 PM | | Votes: 3

Whether Toyota SHOULD be the "Gold Standard" for quality or not, it is anyway.
— lexusis350 (View Profile)

Posted on 1/29/2007 6:08:10 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: -1

I don't really think Toyota want to be lable that way. I mean Toyota has alway try to make the best of everything they made and sold. Society lable you because of the experience they have with owning your products.

Lexus
— Lexus (View Profile)

Posted on 1/29/2007 6:53:57 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 0

During the Pacific War the company was dedicated to truck production for the Imperial Army. Because of severe shortages in Japan, military trucks were kept as simple as possible. For example, the trucks had only one headlight on the center of the hood. The war ended shortly before a scheduled Allied bombing run on the Toyota factories in Aichi.

— EL34 (View Profile)

Posted on 1/29/2007 7:40:15 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1

Wow, you know your history!
— Bill (View Profile)

Posted on 1/29/2007 9:03:22 PM | | Votes: 1

they also had trouble keeping up production of 6-cyl engines for the trucks.

many of those army trucks had ONLY 4-BANGERS. naturally, that made them slow. but they were STILL tough and reliable.
— XYZZ (View Profile)

Posted on 1/30/2007 5:48:11 AM | | Votes: 2

That is too funny, copying and pasting without properly quoting, and then taking the credit.
— cynic (View Profile)

Posted on 1/31/2007 8:48:55 AM | | Votes: 1

"Gold Standard"? I am not too sure about that. GIve it a few more years than see. I think Honda may have a better reliability record. Toyota is growing, and with it it is having the quality growing pains as well. My friend bought an '07 Camry SE with auto transmission. Granted this car is solid in feel and materials used. However her transmission has screwed up with less then 5000 miles on it!! She was astonished and so was I. The dealership's service advisor told her this was the 3rd one he has seen that had been brought into that dealership. This news is kind of disturbing to me since everyone has this mythical perception in their mind that Toyota is the absoute best. Maybe it is, then again, maybe it isn't.
— atomicbri (View Profile)

Posted on 1/29/2007 10:01:52 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 2

auto trannies are complex devices. put them on the side of a transverse mounted engine and potential problems multiply. it's a wonder there are
as few problems as there are,especially with higher output engines.

these things happen. with toyota's production and sales numbers, there are BOUND to be some bad apples.
i'd like to know how many auto trannies went bad, compared to how many were produced.

a book was written by a journalist who hired on at toyota to check out working conditions, at the height of demand for japanese cars in the 1970s. his job was assembling (manual) trannies.

on his line, there were about 3 or 4 DIFFERENT transmissions he had to assemble. all the time toyota was trying to up production to satisfy booming demand, the line was sped up again and again.

if i recall, toward the end, he was assembling one transmission every 65 seconds or so! given how
quickly gearsets must've been flung around, it's a wonder there haven't been TONS of manual transmission failures reported from that time period!
— XYZZ (View Profile)

Posted on 1/30/2007 6:06:22 AM | | Votes: 2

See this is what is funny to me. Had this been a Chrysler 300C with a transmission problem, automatically everyone would say, Oh see that car is junk. When it is a Toyota, people say, oh there can be a few bad apples, or yeah they have a problem from time to time.... Well when 500,000 4x4s and 800,000 pickups are recalled, I can't see that being any better than when GM or Ford or Chrysler recalls their cars. My point is everyone always sees Toyota as faultless, and I am not so sure why.... Their older cars were built well. I had an '90 Celica All Trac Turbo and it was flawless for years, up to 210,000 miles with no flaws (besides the normal wear and tear stuff)Never a recall. But now Toyota sees to be recalling every month, so in my eyes and having been an owner of a Toyota, I see their products as slipping into the typical high volume, high problem kind of company like GM or Ford.
— atomicbri (View Profile)

Posted on 1/30/2007 8:16:38 AM | | Votes: 2

Atomic,
Your wasting your bandwidth...Toyota could build a million Camry's and forget to put the engine in it and they will call it a minor oversight. What I can't wait for is when Toyota becomes the biggest carmaker in the world and the UAW goes for the juglar. Ha...what a wonderful world that will be!!
— Need4Speed (View Profile)

Posted on 1/30/2007 12:05:24 PM | | Votes: 0

"if i recall, toward the end, he was assembling one transmission every 65 seconds or so! given how
quickly gearsets must've been flung around, it's a wonder there haven't been TONS of manual transmission failures reported from that time period!"

this is really remarkable, because of all the owners of toyotas of that vintage that i've known, NOT ONE ever mentioned a tranny problem. (for that matter, i've rarely heard of manual transmission problems on domestics either, other than worn clutches. and maybe worn/slowing synchronizers.)

on the other hand, i've heard horror stories of the COSTS of fixing trannies on euro cars.

despite the speed of assembly, toyota STILL put together quality cars way back in the '70s. if there are more problems today, its largely due to increased complexity of today's cars and components.
— XYZZ (View Profile)

Posted on 2/1/2007 5:48:59 AM | | Votes: 2

Not interior quality, that's for sure.
— Matthew1 (View Profile)

Posted on 1/30/2007 12:01:42 AM | reply to this comment | Votes: -1

And how about your hatred for the big German 3? Maybe THEIR leadership position, and Lexus's comparitive miniscule global position?

Is it their elegant style? Their luxurious interiors? Their fantastic dynamics?

...or a case of the "bad reliability" self-proclamation?
— S4cabriofoxone (View Profile)

Posted on 1/30/2007 6:05:06 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 0

We go over this time, and time again.

What do you think is more important, the world or just America?
— S4cabriofoxone (View Profile)

Posted on 1/30/2007 11:53:37 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1

Will, China is becoming possibly the most important part of the world and how is Toyota selling in China??
— AE86 (View Profile)

Posted on 2/1/2007 2:26:33 AM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1

increasing at double-digit rates, as i recall. ditto honda. (and gm. who sells MORE buicks in china than in u.s.)
— XYZZ (View Profile)

Posted on 2/1/2007 6:12:28 AM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1

And no, I don't think Toyota is getting worse. Small recalls. Recalls, nonetheless.

And for Plano's "haters", notice that this article is actually positive.
— S4cabriofoxone (View Profile)

Posted on 1/30/2007 6:06:21 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1

Should Toyota be the gold standard for quality?

Yes. And so should Honda. Without a doubt the Japanese make the best quality cars. Europeans and US cars should take note.
— Loki123 (View Profile)

Posted on 1/31/2007 2:21:35 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 3

Toyota will never make a good full size truck! This 2007 Tundra is a big, BIG, and LONG disapointment, too big.The new Chev 1/2 ton is way better! Shure the toy has better power but the chev has a better warantee and has the most fuel efficiency and isn't so long! A lot of people believe toys were better when they were made in Japan because they take a lot of pride in there work! In north america there is the perception we take pride in our workmanship but not as much as the Japanese.For a small car I was concidering a corola but with all the problems with toyota I would concider the Civic.Nobody has picked on them yet.LOL
— truckmen (View Profile)

Posted on 2/14/2007 7:45:08 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1

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Should Toyota Really Be The "Gold Standard" for Quality?

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