Micheline Maynard on the Latest Troubles for Toyota - audio
Posted on 02/03/2010 7:57:51 PM PST by smokingfrog
The hybrid-electric Prius has long been Toyota’s “green car,” the symbol of the automaker’s engineering prowess and its big bet on the kind of car consumers will want to buy for decades to come.
But on Wednesday, the Prius was drawn into the mounting crisis for Toyota, as Japanese officials ordered the company to investigate problems with the brakes on the 2010 model. American safety officials also said they had received dozens of similar complaints.
The new questions surrounding the Prius raise doubts about a different problem in a model that was not part of the recent global recalls of more than nine million vehicles.
“Prius is the gold standard,” said Brian Johnson, the senior global auto industry analyst with Barclays Capital in Chicago.
“We know Toyota puts its best engineering and its best talent into that car,” added Mr. Johnson, a Prius owner whose wife and mother-in-law also drive Priuses. “This hits at its flagship.”
Adding to its woes, the transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, said Wednesday that owners of recalled Toyotas should stop driving their vehicles, though he quickly backtracked on the comments.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Sounds like toyota is the number one make in the world now...dethroned GM I surmise. Why else would the media be attacking them like they are?
I am loving Toyota eating shit. Great for America. WE ARE WINNING OUR COUNTRY BACK!!!
Toyota has made it its mission to destroy the American auto industry and ignorant Americans have been more than complicit.
Buick (GENERAL MOTORS) has been #1 in long-term quality for 3 years & Toyota is #6, falling each year and will drop out of the top 10.
THE LIES FROM THE MEDIA ARE AMERICAN AUTOS ARE LOW QUALITY. LIES, LIES and more lies. It seems now the real lie has been Toyota is high quality. They make crap and more LOW quality reports are surfacing!!!!!!!
Since the 50s the Japanese government has been subsidizing Toyota & the rest.
We allowed Toyota, Datsun (Nissan) Honda and the rest TO DUMP inferior & artificially cheap products in the US in an effort to prop up Japanese manufacturing. All this was done at the expense of GM, Ford, Jeep, Chrysler and AMC.
Today the Japanese Government still protects all Japanese Autos by keeping Japan off limits to foreign autos which have a very small share of the Jap market. Example, Ford is only allowed to own 33% of Mazda because they are protectionist.
BUYING JAPANESE = VOTING 4 OBAMA (sadly obama has cursed GM)
The Gang Green eats their young. Get in front of a Pious and hit your brakes...then sue. I can see green in that.
It is WORSE than that.
The goal here is to unionize all the foreign transplant factories (non union workers) with UAW goons. Toyo, Hon, BMW, Nis, Subaru, Porsche, Hyundai, etc etc.
The UAW killed GM and Chrysler and like a parasite - they are looking for a new host to suck the blood from.
My first wife and I drive a 1995 Buick Riviera that we bought new and we will probably replace it with a La Crosse this Summer and put the Riv up on blocks...
Wrong spin dude. The UAW killed GM and Chrysler. They are dead dead dead - it is over.
The UAW parasites are looking for a new host to suck on then kill. The non-union transplants in right to work states are their next target.
Toyota is in a cat fight with the US supplier of the allegedly faulty pedals. I think it’s very likely that Toyota has violated some part of the manufacturer’s specification in the way it uses the pedals.
Toyota makes a much more reliable and better handling car than almost anything that comes out of Detroit. And at this point, the percentage of the car that is made in the U.S. is just about level with Detroit. In fact, Toyota is more made in America than some GM cars.
Mmmm. Had’nt thought of that. You may have something there.
The time line is very suspiscious isnt it?
I would suppose since Ford is kicking Chevvy’s butt, next, Ford will have a recall.
Then go get yourself a Toyota. I'm sure that you will get a deal. Take it for a fast ride on a curvy mountain road!
That is if you think they are more reliable than let's say a Buick.
Ford has already stopped production on one model because it uses the same input device as the Toy...
Even my 85 year-old grandparents wouldn’t be caught driving a Buick. There’s something to be said about a car that still looks and drives like it did in the 50’s.
I think Barry and his boys have drawn an Alinsky style bullseye on Toyota. Dollars to donuts that Ford is next. Barry and his commie piggies don’t appreciate it when you tell them to go take a hike.
Right now I drive a Subaru outback because we live off of a dirt road in Vermont and need the four-wheel drive.
But I drove a Toyota Camry hatchback for years. It handled well, and needed few repairs.
Most Buicks are overweight and have soft springs, so they sway a lot and don’t corner well.
No, I don’t race cars now, but I did for a few years when I was younger.
Hell will freeze over before I buy a car from Obama Motors.
I’d pay more to get less from Toyota or Honda if need be - but I have a lot more confidence in the quality of a Toyota than a GM...I’ve owned both!
It will be interesting to see what becomes of the Prius brake problem. Owning the 2006 Prius, I can honestly say that it is the most trouble free Toyota we’ve owned over the last 26 years. The 2005 Sienna is a very close second. My glowing praise is not nearly the intensity of the anti-Toyota crowd though. It’s hard to see how a vehicle (reliable as these have been), could bring out the level of Toyota hatred I’m seeing in this thread. C’mon guys, it’s just a car (though I can see that it represents a great deal more than that to some of you). Fair enough, as in women, so it is in cars. There’s no accounting for taste.
Re. the Toyota braking system, the regenerative braking system that this vehicle uses is far more complex than that of a normal vehicle. But normal vehicles don’t approach 50 mpg either. It is rather like the fly-by-wire system on the A-320. Pressing the brake pedal does not give you conventional braking as it’s not really using the brake pads for most of the deceleration by my reckoning. For the mechanically minded, it is an interesting study in complexity. For others....well, perhaps that research is best left undone. Suffice to say that the brake system is “sophisticated”, so there’s more potential for problems. It may lend itself to a software fix (if it comes to that) vs. the hardware replacement necessary in the accelerator pedal.
As long as the vehicle is reliable, stays at or around 50 mpg, and doesn’t kill me I’m happy with it. I’m not optimistic enough to buy any vehicle without the extra airbag package though. Winter lasts six months up here, and most folks don’t (or can’t)stop at stop signs in this neck of the woods. Side impacts are killers in any vehicle.
“Wrong spin dude. The UAW killed GM and Chrysler.”
Well, maybe, but they couldn’t have gotten the deed done without a ‘light skinned African American who only uses a Negro dialect when it suits him’ commie making a gaping hole thru the line for them and presenting them with a fait accompli.
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