More on the Toyota Recall...

It seems like everyday, a new beloved Toyota model is being recalled. Their highly hyped new Prius with seemingly spaceship qualities (keeps you in your lane while drifting?!? what....!!) has been recalled, along with favorites such as Corollas and Highlanders.

It's a huge shame for the company, and I'm glad that Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota, has decided to appear in front of Congress (see link in title for more details). Apparently, he tried to first send the North American cheif in place of himself (which I think is ridiculous). After all, the US is probably Toyota's biggest market, and are most affected by these recalls. After talking about government's role in the economy in Econ this week, I think the House oversight committee's request for Toyada is a good example of positive government oversight. I'm glad they're stepping in on behalf of the people. Especially since it's been speculated that much of the evidence of the malfunctioning cars was covered up. On the local news about a week ago, they had a person go undercover to the Toyota dealsership. Even two days after the recall, Toyota was still trying to sell the cars that were defected! Toyota has always been known as a very reliable car company, and have been tremendously failing at dealing with this crisis.

But every cloud does have it's silver lining, for lack of a better cliche. After years of being in the shadows of Japanese automakers (Honda, Toyota...), I think this whole recall business is going to finally open up the doors for American automakers in our market again. They should be doing everything possible to capitalize on this huge gaff.

Do you recall the last recall?

With Toyota’s reputation at hand, thousands of 2009-2010 cars are being recalled due to a variety of errors. The most recent of issues involves one of the top selling cars in the U.S., the Corolla. “A Corolla recall would add to a repair list of more than 8 million vehicles on five continents.” The Toyota recall is due to issues involving power steering; where as other cars are being recalled for brake and accelerating problems. The Prius recalls should be about 80% complete by the end of February. Although it is frustrating to find out that a previously reliable car brand has lowered their manufacturing standards, causing a recall, there is a positive to the issue. At least Toyota is taking responsibility for their errors, and is doing everything possible to fix the issue. It is possible that Toyota’s recall will leave them a better company because they have the ability to learn from their errors. Although they lost the trust of many individuals, they can make positive changes to reverse the bad reputation.