6 Myths About Car Recalls

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hey Higaisha of NE....what the heck is wrong with you!
get a life!!
Its a car ...things happen, every other American company had these problems!!
uhhh grow up!!
Thanks to Toyota and Honda, Amercian's have learned a little about making efficient cars!!! Otherwise we'll be driving the same old gas guzzler even today! No competition = no innovation!!
And oh check your spellings, pinhead!

TheWiseOne of NH 4:31PM April 12, 2010

Automakers have been largely similar in quality for most of the modern era. It's always only been a perception that they are better. It's been a fad to dump on GM for over thirty years. Honda, you're next.

westernbarbarian of NM 2:48PM March 19, 2010

I think the american people should get off their butts and when they here about recalls take their cars in and get them repaired instead of waiting untill they have an accident so they can bad mouth a car company or sue someone to get money in their pockets. When these companies have recall get them fixed don't be a jerk.

Harold of NY 8:28AM March 19, 2010

In fact, I used to call one representative in the headquarter before.
So after that, she won't pass this call through to the director or chief manager,
which indicates that Toyota is not able to measure the compliants.
To think of a product affectivity, they will be accused to the criminal court.
In addition, they are projecting to destroy the earth, to be scened.

Higaisha of NE 1:12AM March 10, 2010

I work for an American Car company. And I'm sick of everytime an American car has some type of recall (big or small) it's always on the front page of the news paper! But when a Toyota or Honda or who ever has one It's a totally different story. There recalls are usaully hiden in the paper in small print! It's rare to hear any big stories about foreign car recalls. But when an American car has a recall everyone hears about it! Like stated above (Automobiles are complicated machines with dozens of computers and thousands of moving parts, subject to bad roads, extreme temperatures, lousy drivers, and outright abuse.) All cars break and have problems. Trust me I work on them for a living!!! The thing that I dont understand is, we live in America. so why does the media always bash the cars that we proudly make here? And that goes for everything, quality, cost and repairs! Look I understand that American cars did kind of suck in the 80 and 90's but the American cars of today are just as good or better then any foreign car. Like I already said I know because I work on cars for a living. People should not be so negative about American car companies. The car industry is a very hard business to be in right now, and it doesnt matter what car manufacture it is!!! The point I'm trying to make is all car companies should be treated equal. Everyone one has there good and bads, ups and downs and problems that may need to be repaired in a recall. God made "man" right? And we are far from perfect! So how can "man" make every car perfect?

Dave of OH 6:18PM March 09, 2010

Riding on reputation and hiding from reality is not the way to produce or maintain quality. I retired from the auto industry and have had more cocktail conversations about US auto quality than I ever wanted to have. Some well deserved and too many more a matter of perceived quality reputation.
It was brought to my attention recently that Ford does not spend all it's marketing dollars on telling the world repeatedly that the F-150 is again the best selling American vehicle, for the 33rd time (I think). That would be akin to living off a reputation and really doesn't mean an awful lot.
How Toyota will come out of this mess or what absolute effect will result is left for time to tell, and the public to decide. It's a little soon to count those chickens, you think?
The myths about recalls are again an example of perception. From the article it seems the most popularly held beliefs are mythical.
So often, recalls seem to occur because we have ideas of expected behavior based on data collected and how well things have gone so far as we know. Problem is when things don't go as expected we remain in disbelief far too long. So long and too often until overwhelming circumstances pull us out of the fog of disbelief into either denial or suspicion.
Proactive suspension of denied suspicion is called for by Toyota and other automakers at this moment. The customer is not out to get them. And automakers need not hide behind recall myths any longer either.
http://bit.ly/bPvGCE

George of MO 12:39AM March 02, 2010

Why does everyone assume that the affected Toyota vehicles can be shifted into neutral at high way speeds? Where is it published that the recalled vehicles will shift into neutral or even down shift when you are going 60+ and have the accelerator depressed? I want to know about the vehicles being recalled specifically. Don’t tell me about a 2003 Ford F150 or 2007 Toyota Yaris or your 1965 Pontiac.
As far as the media coverage maybe it is a little overzealous. But people have died in incidences suspected to be a result of an acceleration issue with some Toyota vehicles. I believe the reason for the media attention is the 911 recording of the state trooper provided a poignant news report. Once the media gets hold of a topic they have trouble letting go untill something better come up. Those who want to point out the number of recalls 7000 for Ford and 2000 for Toyota or whatever. What relevance do these numbers have? How many recalls were for life threatening problems? How many recalls were voluntary? Without context raw numbers are useless. What about the number of investigations that have been launched about this issue over the years? How many of these investigations were closed due to lack of response not lack of evidence? Toyota is not the only one being questioned about this lack of concern. If you want to call responding to complaints that start as far back as 9 years ago, just now a voluntary recall go ahead. But tell me this would this recall even be happening if the media frenzy had not happened? Now the conspiracy theories going around that this is just to sully Toyotas name is silly. Yes the other manufactures are trying to press the quality of their vehicles over Toyota. This is not some grand collaboration between the auto industry the government and the media to destroy Toyota.

Joe of AZ 12:21PM February 25, 2010

Yes it is the upmost concern of an automaker to provide safe reliable vehicles, but flaws and malfunctions are common place. few rare defects like unintended acceleration do take place but even in the most adverse and life-threatening incidents a automobile can b stopped with common sense. don't blame the automakers for designing two diff. style engine start/stop switches or having differing fail-safes look at the driver who didn't have the common sense to pull the floor mat, shift the car to neutral to disconnect engine power through the drivetrain and apply the brake... as to the quality and fault of Toyota's Acceleration pedal from all accounts the automaker is taking all the steps to rectify this issue and continue to provide the public with quality cars for an affordable price

Kevin of VA 7:56AM February 25, 2010

Ofcourse they knew about the problem, the thing is when you churn those cars out for that profit, its kind of hard to "say , hay, I made a mistake , please ship them back". He made his profit so now he can deal with what he had already knew.
Im just surprised that him being Japanese actually admitted his mistake, Japanese dont normally admit they have made a mistake, they usually put it on someone else.

Judo Master of NY 11:41PM February 24, 2010

In new GM cars with 'push-to-start'buttons, one push starts the motor & two (2) pushes stop the motor. On Toyota vehicles, one push to start but a three (3) second 'hold down' on the button to stop the motor. That poor CHP officer probably 'pushed the button' numerous times (probably mashed the d..m thing thru the dash) but it wouldn't stop the motor -- he didn't know that he had to hold the button down for 3 seconds -- this was a rental car! Reading the manual is imperative! However, why do two different manufacturers have two different ways to STOP a motor??? Where is the Highway Safety Commission's (or other regulatory commission's) responsibility lie??? Let's have some commonality between manufacturers on such BASIC controls as this! That would be basic KISS (keep it simple stupid) engineering.

fred of CA 5:55PM February 24, 2010