Comments on: Toyota Recall: Welcome to Washington

By: Distiller

Distiller — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 12:54:21 +0000

That Congress clownery will not get GM the market shares back they lost in 30 years of ignorance!

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:35:22 +0000

Actually they did tell owners of Explorers who had that particular Firestone tire to have them replaced, but by the time the problem came to light, Firestone had redesigned the tire and the problem tires were worn out.

No disagreement on fake news, anything for ratings and page views.

By: Sybarite

Sybarite — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:42:59 +0000

They definitely dropped the ball on the way to becoming #1. I agree that Congress would have investigated no matter what. But I have problem with Mr. La Hood’s hyperbolic statement…maybe I forgot them telling people to stop driving all Fords. And I have issues with rigged media demos, like the faked Audi acceleration on 60 minutes, or the rigged GM truck explosion by Dateline NBC, and others.

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:58:14 +0000

“AutoWeek, Automotive News, Car & Driver, Motor Trend, Wards Auto, and others…”

All unimpeachable, neutral observers I’m sure. Toyota has been hung on the petard of its own documents and the deals it cut with the past administration’s NHTSA.

Remember this is a culture that once placed citizens who violated public standards in stocks on the public square, welcome to the modern version of that.

Toyota’s problem wasn’t that they experienced manufacturing and design defects, that happens. Their problems result from the attempts to cover and minimize the defects so as not to interfere with the firms march to overtake GM as the worlds largest auto manufacturer.

As far as the alleged perception of conflict of interest, do you really think Congress would act any different if the government had not saved GM and Chrysler? As Gunnar points out, Congress had no problem filleting Ford and Firestone a decade ago.

By: Sybarite

Sybarite — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:05:49 +0000

Yes, very eloquently put, this is political theatre and grandstanding at its fullest. That being said, there is at least the perception of conflict of interest due to the US government’s majority stake in GM and partial ownership of Chrysler. Not to mention Secretary of Transportation Ray La Hood’s hyperbolic comment–later retracted–that owners should stop driving their Toyotas. And fueling this perception is last night’s jury-rigged ABC News segment claiming that they could cause a Toyota to run out of control–possibly echoing the falsified Audi 60 Minutes acceleration stunt. Already, automotive journalists from AutoWeek, Automotive News, Car & Driver, Motor Trend, Wards Auto, and others have called this a witchhunt.

But to be sure, Toyota has made mistakes, and now it seems no amount of mea culpas will suffice.

http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/feb2010/bw20100211_986136.htm