Toyota’s PR efforts have been competent if muted during the ongoing recall scandal. Though it could certainly have done more in the past weeks (specifically by making top leadership more available to the public) Toyota has carefully avoided overreacting to the mushrooming media frenzy. Until now. The NYT’s Wheels Blog reports that the 173 Toyota dealers who make up Toyota Southeast have pulled regional ads from ABC stations because of “excessive stories on the Toyota issues.” Toyota Southeast’s ad agency 22Squared says “We have counseled the client on the pros and cons of this, and ultimately it was their decision to make.” Toyota continues to run corporate ads on ABC, but the petulant backlash from its Southeast dealers can’t help but reflect poorly on the brand. Any PR pro will tell you (and presumably 22Squared  counseled its clients of this), that these kinds of strong-arm tactics do nothing to improve public perceptions of a brand. Toyota dealers might feel that the parent company is not doing enough on the PR front, but this approach will only create the need for more PR in the future.

Inventory management woes have played a huge role in the decline of America’s domestic automakers, but according to a lengthy piece in Automotive News [sub], the days of inventory pushing are now officially a thing of the past. Unless they aren’t. At the moment things look good. AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson enthuses:

It’s the most exciting thing we’ve ever seen. I’ve lived for this day to come. The inventories for the industry are the cleanest and in the best shape ever — ever.

AN [sub] says inventory levels are at their most sane levels since they began tracking data in 1992. That gives Detroit executives the opportunity to crow over their discipline and the sustainability of their business models, despite the fact that the Detroit firms still top recent average incentive estimates. And long-term estimates show up to 2m units of overcapacity will be re-accumulated by 2012. “I hope [inventory push] is dead,” says Group 1 CEO Earl Hesterberg. “I doubt it’s completely dead just because of the fixed cost pressure on manufacturers.”

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will have to wait two more weeks to gets its claws into Toyota, as heavy weather has postponed hearings scheduled for today until the 24th. But don’t expect the delay take any of the pressure of Toyota: lawmakers are taking the extra time to widen their investigations. Automotive News [sub] reports that House Energy Committee Chair Rep Henry Waxman (D-CA) has solicited documents from a number of auto insurers after it was revealed that State Farm had warned the NHTSA of possible unintended acceleration in Toyotas as early as 2007. The Energy Committee has scheduled hearings for the 25th.

Meanwhile, Reuters has published one of the most comprehensive pieces we’ve seen yet on Toyota’s “epic breakdown.” Don’t miss it.

Honda said it will recall another roughly 378,000 vehicles in the U.S. to fix potentially faulty airbag systems that are linked to at least one known fatality and 11 injuries in the U.S., says the Nikkei [sub].

That brings the number of airbag-related recalled Honda and Acura models to more than 826,000. Honda said some airbags in its older vehicles deploy with too much pressure, and send metal fragments flying into the car. Read More >

The gentlemen at Reuters asked me to pen an op-ed on the Toyota situation (as of last weekend) for them, so I did. My conclusion, in a sentence:

If there’s a lesson to Toyota’s tumble, it’s that easy assumptions aren’t enough to keep you safe on the road, or in the showroom.

Read the whole thing here.

Reuters reports that Toyota has informed the NHTSA that it will voluntarily recall over 7,000 2010 Camry four-cylinder models. According to a Toyota document sent to dealers:

2010 Camrys equipped with a 4-cylinder engine might have a shorter-than-required power steering pressure hose in the engine compartment. That could deplete the brake fluid, increasing the brake pedal stroke and making it more difficult and requiring more time to stop the vehicle

For the record, Ford would have just called this a “Customer Satisfaction Program.”

Ever since I found this relatively rare 1970 Continental Coupe, I’ve been trying to find something good to say about it. Don’t get me wrong; I love it, in its intrinsic hugeness and badness. But then I had a crush on Blaze Starr in seventh grade too. And I was just about as thrilled to find it in this neighborhood of old Toyotas and Volvos as if Blaze herself was suddenly sauntering down the sidewalk au naturel. 1970 Lincolns, especially the coupe, are rare these days; that pretty much goes for the whole ’70-74 generation. Devoid of the ’61’s clear angular brilliance, heavily influenced by GM’s big barges, and lacking the in-your-face over-the-top I’m-big-and-I’m-proud excess of their ’75-’79 successors, these are almost forgotten now. Shall we call them the lost Lincolns? Oh wait; I think I just came up with something positive… Read More >

Perhaps the biggest surprise of Jim Lentz’s appearance on Digg Dialogue was the number of questions that were unrelated to Toyota’s ongoing recalls and quality issues. But even if crowdsourcing had yielded a number of truly tough questions, Lentz had access to them ahead of the interview, giving him time to craft slippery answers. Still, the session provides an interesting of a preview of Toyota’s defense ahead of tomorrow’s congressional hearing. The main thrust: unintended acceleration is mysterious phenomenon, and finding a common cause for multiple incidents could be nearly impossible. Unless investigators find a ghost in Toyota’s electronics code, that may be as good of an answer as we’re ever going to get.

Toyota heads up to Capital Hill tomorrow to face the ire of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in a hearing that’s been subtly named “Toyota Gas Pedals: Is the Public at Risk?” A memo by committee staff [via the WSJ] sets a paranoid tone for the hearing, as the NHTSA investigation widens beyond gas pedals alone:

Attention is now being focused on the electronic throttle control system (ETC) to determine whether sudden acceleration may be attributable to a software design problem or perhaps to electromagnetic interference. The committee staff found numerous complaints made to NHTSA describing sudden acceleration that was not caused by either floor mats or sticky pedals.

Toyota’s Yoshi Inaba will face the brunt of the questioning, although Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and NHTSA administrator David Strickland will surely face questions about their oversight of Toyota (or lack thereof).

Read More >

State Farm, the US’ largest automotive insurance company, began warning federal regulators in 2007 about unintended acceleration in Toyotas, the
Washington Post reports. Yet the National Highway Traffic Safety did not begin to act for more than a year after State Farm’s initial alerts. This
revelation follows by more than a decade the insurer’s warnings about Ford Explorer rollovers, which the Post reports led to a congressional
investigation, and legislation that “created an “early warning” system for auto safety.” But NHTSA apparently hasn’t been paying attention to the information it has collected. Randy Whitfield, a Maryland consultant, using data from NHTSA, two years ago determined that the 2007 Toyota Camry and Lexus ES 350 had excess injuries due to unexpected acceleration. State Farm insures more than 40 million customers.

The Japanese government is getting increasingly worried that the Toyota debacle might turn into a worldwide backlash against Japanese cars, or even all Japanese products. As the world’s 4^th largest export nation, Japan has a lot to worry about.

Today, large parts of the Japanese cabinet came down hard on Toyota, says the Nikkei [sub]. Read More >

Yesterday I sold a 1992 Lexus LS400. It was a well kept model with all the bells and whistles for it’s time. Hands-free cell phone. 250 horsepower V8. Sunroof, ABS, plenty of wood interior accents. For 195,000 miles it was a really great car. At the time it drove off I was speaking to a journalist from Reuters who was covering the Toyota recall. A mental somersault happened at that very moment. While I watched the Lexus pull away and kept on discussing the industry wide battle to contain costs, I looked at a few of my older cars. A 1993 Town & Country, still in great condition. A 1995 Cavalier that could easily go another eight to ten years. A 1997 Pontiac Sunfire Convertible that still drove like it was virtually new. Three cars. All of which were of seemingly dubious reputations for their time all had a good shot of hitting the big 20. I realized something in that very moment…
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Scion shows off the tC “Release Series Six” edition, which boasts a 70s muscle car-inspired graphics package, complete with a not-in-any-way-indicative-of-engine-displacement “6.0” on the flank. Think of the look as Yee-haw meets Ichiban, but because it’s a Scion tC it’s neither cool nor particularly fast. Poor Scion…

The legal angle to the Toyota recall story has been a source of constant amusement, from an early attempt to prevent Toyota from enacting its gas pedal fix, to news today [via Reuters] that at least 30 class-action suits have been filed since the recall began. “This is going to a little cottage industry all of its own,” says Matt Cairns of DRI, the Voice of the Defense Bar, the largest U.S. civil defense attorney association.
Read More >

It’s the software, stupid. At a press conference at 3:30 pm Japanese time, Toyota came clean and announced that it will recall 223,068 hybrid vehicles in Japan, including its latest Prius model and three other models–the Sai, the Lexus HS250h and the Prius Plug-In Hybrid, says the Nikkei [sub]. They will get a re-flash of the brake software.  Worldwide recalls of affected models will follow. This ends – for now – weeks of waffling over the latest in a series of Toyota problems.

The recall will start Wednesday. A total of 199,666 Prius vehicles manufactured between April 20, 2009 and Jan. 27 of this year will receive new ABS software. Read More >