Still getting caught up on all of this, but there was a problem with sticky gas pedals?
Toyota's Recall Crisis: What Have We Learned?
11–20 of 37 posts
Re: Toyota's Recall Crisis: What Have We Learned?
#12[deleted]
Is the floor mat really a Toyota specific problem? What is so damn awful about their floor mats that you end up in an accident?
I had a Ford and I put in rubber floor mats on top of the OEM carpet ones. No problem upon installation, but overtime they slipped up behind my pedals and I had problems with braking/acceleration. I stopped, got out, pull the floor mat back 3", and everything was fine. Now if I feel the floor mat creeping up I just pull it back. If you took 3 seconds to open your door and look at the mat behind the pedals it was an obvious problem.
I've had the exact same problem with the rubber floor mats on a Mazda 6, Subaru Forester, and Ford Explorer. The solution everytime is the same, pull the floor mat back into its proper position. It really isn't that hard.
So Toyota gets blamed for something that can happen to anyone, anytime, using any car and any floor mat. Why is that?
(On the other hand, Toyotas are far from perfect, on my girlfriends Toyota the sun visor is so far out of position in order to lower it you need to rotate the rearview mirror out of its way about 2". How did that pass QA?)
Re: Toyota's Recall Crisis: What Have We Learned?
#13> Toyota's Recall Crisis: What Have We Learned?
How completely unreliable our media can be when it comes to anything not having to do with Jersey Shore or American Idol?
Forgive the snark, but the idea that a company lost all that money, sustained such damage to their brand and image built over so many years simply because of a media that failed to do their jobs makes my blood boil.
Re: Toyota's Recall Crisis: What Have We Learned?
#14[deleted]
Is the floor mat really a Toyota specific problem? What is so damn awful about their floor mats that you end up in an accident? I had a Ford and I put in rubber floor mats on top of the OEM carpet ones. No problem upon installation, but overtime they slipped up behind my pedals and I had problems with braking/acceleration. I stopped, got out, pull the floor mat back 3", and everything was fine. Now if I feel the floo…
The floor mat replacement was a red herring. I've used aftermarket mats in cars without proper pins, and it's a matter of using your brain to not get them tangled up in the accelerator (which is actually hard to do). Stupid people do stupid things, and the stupid media celebrates stupidity for the sake of stupid viewers.
Re: Toyota's Recall Crisis: What Have We Learned?
#15[deleted]
Is the floor mat really a Toyota specific problem? What is so damn awful about their floor mats that you end up in an accident? I had a Ford and I put in rubber floor mats on top of the OEM carpet ones. No problem upon installation, but overtime they slipped up behind my pedals and I had problems with braking/acceleration. I stopped, got out, pull the floor mat back 3", and everything was fine. Now if I feel the floo…
My '09 Toyota Corolla has hooks that keep the floor mats in place. The only way to jam the mat underneath the brake pedal would be to do it deliberately.
Re: Toyota's Recall Crisis: What Have We Learned?
#16I'm sure that this is a common phrase, but one of my friends gave this advice to me: "Their perception is your reality." He was talking about management, and maintaining a good image to your employees, but the phrase applies to everything. People's perception was that Toyota had some terrible electrical problems, and the news media, being a for-profit endeavor, ran with it. So Toyota's perceived problems became reali…
"So Toyota's perceived problems became reality, and we needed to devote 10 months of the brightest engineering minds in the world to change that."
Sadly, that's not how it works. People will forever remember that Toyota had horrible safety problems, and not that they were actually exonerated in the end.
Re: Toyota's Recall Crisis: What Have We Learned?
#17The interesting part of this is that NASA did a study. I used to work for NASA as a contractor. I never met anyone with automotive engineering experience. Not that there weren't any, but wouldn't it make more sense to hire an automotive engineering consulting company to do a study? Come to think of it, I wonder who NASA hired to do the study. I bet dollars to donuts it wasn't government (NASA) employees. But people (…
NHTSA has been convinced all along that there are no real issues with the cars and the commissioned study was really just for show. NASA is the best agency to tap for this (read superstars of science and engineering). Average Joe on the radio is not going to go "they got NASA for this? Why?", he's going to say "NASA! Wow, they really mean business now"
Re: Toyota's Recall Crisis: What Have We Learned?
#18[deleted]
Is the floor mat really a Toyota specific problem? What is so damn awful about their floor mats that you end up in an accident? I had a Ford and I put in rubber floor mats on top of the OEM carpet ones. No problem upon installation, but overtime they slipped up behind my pedals and I had problems with braking/acceleration. I stopped, got out, pull the floor mat back 3", and everything was fine. Now if I feel the floo…
It was a floor mat from a suv(bigger) put in a Lexus sedan. The reason the thing was such a media darling because it had all the trappings for news ratings: Borrowed luxury vehicle, police officer off duty, 911 call up until the end, 90 plus mph, flying off a cliff to a huge crash and fire that killed the whole carload of passengers. If it was an accelerator getting stuck and crashing into a pole from a red light it wouldn't have gotten nearly the attention.
Re: Toyota's Recall Crisis: What Have We Learned?
#19> Toyota's Recall Crisis: What Have We Learned? How completely unreliable our media can be when it comes to anything not having to do with Jersey Shore or American Idol? Forgive the snark, but the idea that a company lost all that money, sustained such damage to their brand and image built over so many years simply because of a media that failed to do their jobs makes my blood boil.
And to think we scoffed at the Japanese conspiracy of an American media hit job against Toyota.
Re: Toyota's Recall Crisis: What Have We Learned?
#20> Toyota's Recall Crisis: What Have We Learned? How completely unreliable our media can be when it comes to anything not having to do with Jersey Shore or American Idol? Forgive the snark, but the idea that a company lost all that money, sustained such damage to their brand and image built over so many years simply because of a media that failed to do their jobs makes my blood boil.
And to think we scoffed at the Japanese conspiracy of an American media hit job against Toyota.
I would hesitate to call it a conspiracy, which ascribes some true malice to the media. I think it's probably more of institutional bias towards the sensational and a catering to people's beliefs out of desire for more viewers.