The boys over at ToMoCo NA are not insensitive to the fact that their critics have seized on Consumer Reports' recent reliability downgrade as [alleged] evidence that they've lost their mechanical mojo. So Toyota's released a statement on the PR debacle that assures quality-minded pundits and punters that "we're taking measures every day to continue to sharpen quality and enhance customer satisfaction." Not exactly a major mea culpa, now is it? In fact, the missive is something of an FU to the company's critics, devoting the majority of its editorial space to reminding nay-sayers who's boss around here. "Toyota, Lexus and Scion models collectively led the industry with the greatest number of models, 17, ranked "Most Reliable" in this year's Consumer Reports Reliability Survey. With dozens of models from three dozen makes vying for a spot on the magazine's "Most Reliable" list, only 39 were chosen. Toyota, Lexus and Scion models accounted for 44 percent of the list. Toyota, Lexus and Scion earned three of the top six places among most reliable makes. Collectively they ranked third place in reliability among all automakers." Clearly, Toyota Motor Sales Executive Vice President is a 3/4 full kinda guy. "Over all, this survey reflects well on our products," Jim Lentz pronounced. Oh, the humility!
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So much for praising Toyota’s Lean Production/Six Sigma/ISO-whatever and its historical ability to fix issues quickly once they are addressed.
Unless that’s something they (as a company) have overlooked in the past few years…
Hmm…
Arrogance and scorn, a sense of entitlement to throne of all things automotive. Now whom does that remind you of?
All I heard was that Toyota dropped to 4th or 5th place from 1st.
However, this doesn’t imply that their quality got worse. Their competition could’ve just gotten better.
Did CR really say that Toyota’s quality had fallen?
Sorry, did the TTAC staff read the actual report? One of the brands above Toyota on the CR list is another Toyota brand (Scion), two of them are Honda brands, no mention of the statistical difference between the different spots and no mention of whether everyone else rose or Toyota fell.
I think Toyota is absolutely right – this report is no biggie.
In the long run this is probably not a big problem for Toyota. It will take a lot to get Mr. and Ms. Middle America to switch from ol’ reliable (even if it isn’t). I thought the utter blandness of the majority of Toyota’s lineup might eventually cause some problems. But I was wrong; they cater to a vast bland constituency. However, it is a black eye and the news play its getting is incredible. Everyone loves to knock something off a pedestal.
Just remember, Toyota’s got what… 15-16% market share to protect or fritter away? Not exactly the 50% that GM once had or the 27% Ford did.
I would assume that Toyota is being the proverbial duck here, calmly cruising the water above while the legs below are working overtime to fix what’s wrong… or not.
The huge majority of people that buy Toyota’s will never hear about this (or hear very little). Automotive enthusiasts they not be (Supra owners notwithstanding) and they won’t be chasing down the latest “car news”. And like others have stated, it’s not even that bad.
I think that Toyota is quickly becoming the GM of Japanese brands. Too big for their britches. Maybe entering NASCAR wasn’t such a good idea after all. Too much attention on racing and not enough on quality? Maybe.
What was really the problem here?
1. Some early production of the new V6 transmission had problems, but has been Kaizan-ed away by now.
2. Out of the first few months of production of the Tundra 4WD Consumer Reports got a sample of 1259 vehicles of which apparently a few dozen had some problems. At the same time Tundra 2WD was stellar.
To the New York Times Toyota says they haven’t seen this problem.
3. Lexus sedans report a lot of squeaks and rattles. That’s embarrassing, but can probably be Kaizan-ed away easily.
Other than that…. there’s not much to criticize. High volume models such as Corolla, Prius, Tacoma, Sienna, RAV4, Highlander, 4Runner, Camry Hybrid and Lexus RX continue to be stellar.
Also, notice that the Avalon is now class leading in the large car segment, even though a few years back it was panned by Consumer Reports for poor quality. So whatever was wrong then with it has been fixed by now.
So, yeah, no biggie. But of course we’ve come to expect continuous greatness from Toyota, and from that perspective the slightest defect is a disappointment. Hopefully Mr. Watanabe in Japan will take that to heart.
Look… Toyota is not becoming the GM of ’80s. They were going to have growing pains expanding into technologies and segments they’ve never been to before. That’s the price of innovation and growth. They were also going to have pains in their own relentless quest of cost-cutting (hence the new Tundra and Camry interiors, which, while ok, are not the Toyota of old).
The good news for Toyota is that they are a much more nimble and self-critiquing organization overall. They will fix their problems eventually and the problems they have are contained and not company wide and across the product pipeline (that we can tell).
The only thing that this has really done is allow Honda, which has quietly sat in Toyota’s shadow, emerge as the quality queen (on top of more interesting designs, better safety rep, efficiency, etc). and allow Ford, which has been cranking the quality wheels now since 2004 to get that much closer to and, potentially, soon pass Toyota in at least initial quality and maybe in reliability (we won’t know that for 5-8 years).
Your Toyota still won’t fall apart after 60k like an old GM tranny, but neither will your Honda or Ford. Basically, the more brands that catch up to Toyota, the less a factor like reliability plays in a consumer’s equation and more than hurting Toyota’s image it just increases the options to buyers – which may ultimately hurt Toyota’s sales bit by bit.
I have faith in Toyota and I do believe they will get this problem under control. Toyota KNOW that if they loose quality and reliability from their cars, they might as well shut up shop, because no-one is going to buy their cars for their looks (Toyota Corolla or Avensis, anyone?). Let’s give Toyota at least 3 years to sort this problem out. If we’re still having this conversation then, then maybe we should start a Toyota deathwatch?
Mr Watanabe does not want to go down in Toyota’s History as the CEO who messed up Toyota’s legendary reliability. Would YOU want to be known as the Japanese “Roger Smith”…….?
What Consumer Reports really says is that it’s not giving Toyota an automatic recommendation:
“Because of those findings, we will no longer recommend new or redesigned Toyotas without reliability data on a specific design. If Toyota returns to its previous record of outstanding reliability, we may resume recommending its new models based on history.”
Toyota/Lexus has introduced a lot of new models in the past two years, so this might be a temporary hiccup.
If they get this problem fixed, it’ll show up in TrueDelta’s results first.
The did not fix it quickly enough to affect the November results, which cover owner experiences through the end of September. Next update after that will be in February…
http://www.truedelta.com/reliability.php
I’d certainly like to see more details. If it’s teething problems and Toyota’s taking care of those customers that experience problems, that’s not a huge problem. If the nature of the troubles they’re having affect long-term reliability and durability, that won’t have an impact for a while – but I’d hate to buy an ’08 Toyota and find out it had the soul of a Chrysler.
I’d bet they pull it together for the next model year across the board.
This is probably the best PR move. Just be realistic about the results; they’re still very highly ranked. I don’t know if it’s a good move to come out and act like they have a serious problem, because they could freak some people out. Just quietly fix the issues and point out that the results are still good.
From an Automotive News article
“Lentz said that because of problems Toyota found with an automatic transmission, he was not surprised the V-6 Camry failed to make the recommended list. He said the problem was with design, not manufacturing, and was quickly corrected.
“We knew in the very beginning we had a transmission issue with that vehicle,” he said.”
Then why’d they sell it?
http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071017/ANA02/71017014/-1
MichaelJ, in regards to automatic transmission problems being known by Toyota…
“They why’d they sell it?”
I’ve often wondered the same thing about Ford, because almost every Ford owner I know has had transmission problems. Including myself. And not a year 1 problem, my vehicle had been in production for the better part of a decade when I bought it. My brother’s was the same way.
The short answer is, Toyota made a bad call between rush to market and getting it right. It could be that lower levels of engineering or manufacturing didn’t tell the upper echelons the whole story or maybe the top brass made a poor decision.
But who will I trust, long-term? A company that broke down on a new product launch and worked fairly diligently to make things right or a company that consistently left friends, relatives and myself holding the bag for repairs to cars that had been in production for years?
Am I going to be a little suspicious of Toyota and keep an eye on this? Sure. Swear off their cars forever? No.
>>What Consumer Reports really says is that it’s not giving Toyota an automatic recommendation:
Funny that CR doesn’t even blink at the fact that it is normal for it to give products automatic recommendation, without actual tests or actual results.
Such a practice smacks of pure laziness at best, and blatant misleading of customers at worse.
Presumably, then, CR has been recommending the brand “automatically” for some time, and is only now finding that the brand may not deserve this.
In effect, CR misled its readers, while at the same time expecting readers to rely on it. Was it lying to its readers before? Is it lying to its readers now? And in any event, why should we ever rely on it again?
CR may have had credibility issues in the past, but it seems this current flap is more an indictment of CR itself than of any one automobile brand.
Thinking back to the 70’s, when the big 3 started their precipitous fall from grace, what’s worth remembering is that when their reputations fell, the likes of Toyota and Honda were there to pick up the customers that the big 3 lost.
Even if Toyota is losing their rep for quality, that only matters if there’s someone else to pick up those lost custmers. Does anyone really think that a disappointed Toyota customer is going to turn to Chevy? Or Ford? Or Chrysler? Only in the opium dreams of the US auto executives.
I suppose Honda could pick up a few, maybe, but who else? And recall that there are many market segments currently dominated by Toyota that Honda does not compete in: Real trucks and SUVs come immediately to mind.
Articles like this are fun, though. The domestic car boosters will enjoy a heapin’ helpin’ of schadenfruede, car buyers will continue to buy Toyotas, and the big 2.9 will continue to be clueless.
MichaelJ, the reason why they sold it was the transmission problem was discovered only after the Camry was already in production. Helps to know the full story.
Also let me state for the record: you heard it here first: all of you Toyota critics saying that Toyota is experiencing a quality downfall will eat your words. What RobertSD was correct.
Just you wait and see: Toyota will come to be known as the Intel of the automotive world. Over the past 20 years, Intel has gone through many ups and downs, and right now they are stronger than ever in the market. Why? One word: paranoia.
Both Intel and Toyota are large yet nimble corporations that both have a similar corporate culture with a key component which is paranoia.
Toyota right now is more paranoid than ever specifically because of it’s success. Intel has always been paranoid of it’s success too. The irony is that in the 80s Intel insitituted this corporate culture of paranoia because they learned about it partly from the Japanese.