Feds clear Toyota of electronic causes

Jstas

Yeah, remember all that recall stuff?

Yeah, the Feds said it wasn't electronics related.

http://detnews.com/article/20110208/AUTO01/102080381/Feds-clear-Toyota-of-electronic-causes

They did say though that there were found problems with mechanical systems including sticking pedal mechanisms and horribly designed floormats. Oh, yeah, they also said that Toyota drivers are morons. I'm paraphrasing there but that's the gist of it.

tonyb

Alot of drivers in general are morons, but do we need a gov. agency to tell us this ? A horribly designed floormat ?? Sticky pedals ?? You mean the geniuses at Toyota and the government had to spend millions to study this ?
I know we went over this recall crap before so I won't rehash it, but this whole thing smelled from the begining.

SolidSqual

Sorry, I made a political statement and am voluntary removing it. I can't stand this topic.

Jstas

tonyb wrote: »

Alot of drivers in general are morons, but do we need a gov. agency to tell us this ? A horribly designed floormat ?? Sticky pedals ?? You mean the geniuses at Toyota and the government had to spend millions to study this ?
I know we went over this recall crap before so I won't rehash it, but this whole thing smelled from the begining.

The investigation was because of Toyota's unsatisfactorily slow response to complaints, their blocking of the NHTSA to statistical records regarding the vehicles involved and what other vehicles might actually be involved as well as the sheer number of accusations that surfaced.

Toyota could have avoided it all if they had just co-operated but they didn't. The only thing that "smelled" was how Toyota handled the situation. The Feds wouldn't have had to investigate if they weren't so shady to begin with.

BTW, this doesn't exonerate Toyota from the recalls. The report clearly states that there were problems found that necessitate a recall. So the recall still needed to happen. The lame claims about what could cause an electrical malfunction were what was addressed as not being credible. That was a small part of the majority of the claims that were attributed to poor floormat design and faulty gas pedal construction.

Jstas

SolidSqual wrote: »

The Bamster tried to pull some Chi Town tactics by investigating Toyota to increase Chevy sales. What a doosh. I'm buying a Lexus for my next car.

Glad we had a **** ton of Nasa scientists wasting millions by studying perfectly engineered car components.

Wow.

Really?

Perfectly engineered, huh?

Then why did 11 million "perfectly engineered" gas pedal assemblies need to be recalled and replaced?




Y'all need to get your heads out of the sand and read the article for what it is not what you want it to say. Toyota screwed up. The recall still needed to happen to address the gas pedal problems and floormats. Floor. Mats. The pinnacle of engineering prowess and quality control hasn't figured out "captured floormats" yet and you call their stuff "perfectly engineered"?

SolidSqual

The money spent is what bugs me. If Toyota doesn't fix the issues associated with their cars, then the market will. It is as simple as that. We didn't need a federally funded study, especially in these times.

SolidSqual

Jstas wrote: »

Wow.

Really?

Perfectly engineered, huh?

Then why did 11 million "perfectly engineered" gas pedal assemblies need to be recalled and replaced?




Y'all need to get your heads out of the sand and read the article for what it is not what you want it to say. Toyota screwed up. The recall still needed to happen to address the gas pedal problems and floormats. Floor. Mats. The pinnacle of engineering prowess and quality control hasn't figured out "captured floormats" yet and you call their stuff "perfectly engineered"?

No, you're right. I was speaking more to the electronic parts. Sorry my previous statement was garbage and emotional, which is why I edited it to avoid getting this thread flagged as political. I didn't want to be the doosh who got your thread killed. Sorry.

tonyb

I agree with all that John, but you have to admit, the press dragged them threw the mud for months over this. Lawsuits up the wazoo, anything to drive customers away from them and into GM's lap. Now we see Honda and others are being targeted by the unions to force them to join. Gangsta politics is at play from this administration towards corporations in general.

LessisNevermore

What is meant by the word "Gangsta" and that particular spelling of it?

Jstas

SolidSqual wrote: »

The money spent is what bugs me. If Toyota doesn't fix the issues associated with their cars, then the market will. It is as simple as that. We didn't need a federally funded study, especially in these times.

If anything, I blame Toyota for the waste of money and time. If they had been cooperative from the start, it probably wouldn't have been a big deal. But it was clear that an investigation was needed because of all the cover-ups and non-reporting that Toyota did on previous incidents surrounding similar issues on the recalled cars.

I'm not bagging on Toyota nor am I trying to get political.

I'm glad their code was deemed A-OK. Mechanical stuff can be fixed easily. Code on the other hand, that's alot scarier. Give credit and demerits where it's due. Just because one section of recalls that amounted to about 220,000 vehicles was deemed "driver error" doesn't mean that the problems with the other 9 million vehicles recalled in the U.S. alone weren't valid or necessary.

Toyota is still working to fix the problem. Probably won't be done until May this year. I'm glad they are fixing the problem. I'm sorry people died from it and I'm sorry that it took legal action like a federal investigation and accusations of criminal negligence for them to get their act together and realize that some things are more important than reputation. If anything, all the legal wrangling and "statements issued" did way more to damage them overall than any amount of broken cars.

AsSiMiLaTeD

This whole thing has been overblown since day 1. So there were a handful of accidents cause by bad floormats, that's too bad but people die from dumber stuff all the time.

I'm sure there have been Fords, Chevy, Dodge, BMW, Jag, etc etc that have also been wrecked due to a floormat getting jammed up.

I'm not saying it was a big government conspiracy to bring down the #1 selling automaker to boost the sales of the government subsidezed ameri-mexican automakers or anything like that, but the whole thing was way overblown and ridiculous.

I know, PEOPLE DIED!!!! and all that, but people die all the time from auto accidents, and I seriously doubt Toyota is at any more fault than the other auto makers in that respect.

My general rule of thumb is, things generally are neither quite as bad or quite as good as others would have you believe, and to me this whole thing is no exception to that rule.

Jstas

tonyb wrote: »

I agree with all that John, but you have to admit, the press dragged them threw the mud for months over this. Lawsuits up the wazoo, anything to drive customers away from them and into GM's lap. Now we see Honda and others are being targeted by the unions to force them to join. Gangsta politics is at play from this administration towards corporations in general.

Oh, I agree completely. The press tarted it up pretty good. I don't think it necessarily had anything to do with the GM thing because honestly, the Toyota investigations were in swing long before the bailouts. The recalls actually started in 2007 when Toyota reported a limited number of incidents. What sparked the further recalls in 2009 is the death of the police officer and family. The NHTSA opened a safety investigation on October 25th. That investigation found that there were far more similar incidents reported than Toyota car forward with. There was also evidence in the IIHSA's records that was vastly different on the number of claims made versus what Toyota reported. Add to the fact that Toyota took over a year to report any incident and they exceeded the statute of limitations set forth by the NHTSA for safety investigation by well over 6 months. That's completely unsat. That opened the floodgates and when the recalls started in November, it was a disaster.

Yeah, the bailouts happened in June but the investigations started because of that safety investigation launched by the NHTSA. They found that there were many more "incidents" than what Toyota had reported and the NHTSA had to investigate because Toyota was potentially liable for damages and civil penalties due to a lack of response and withholding evidence.

Did it drive customers away? You bet it did! But Toyota and it's "Jesus Car" have been media darlings for decades. I've never seen the U.S. media trash Toyota or Honda like it does Ford, GM and Chrysler. Aside from that, there's other issues. The head of the NHTSA, Ray LaHood, is a verifiable jackass that loves mugging for the camera. The guy makes an issue out of everything from tire pressures to texting while driving. Congress didn't get involved until 9 months after the investigation and recalls were started because Toyota was blocking the investigation by refusing to release internal documentation on reported incidents.

Besides, it didn't drive people in to GM's laps, it drove them in to Ford's laps because Ford didn't need the bailout. It also pushed them elsewhere to Hyundai and Nissan who have also made tremendous strides in quality and saw massive sales jumps in 2009-2010.

So yeah, the media did a good screwjob on the whole Toyota thing but I think that a Congressional/Federal scheme to destroy Toyota in the press to improves sales in Government Motors is getting a bit too far in to tinfoil hat territory for me. Besides, it wasn't just the U.S. Media that was in on the act. Media outlets around the world were on the bandwagon and Toyota got it the worst in Japan where they are still losing ground and have posted like 9 consecutive quarters of a loss for the first time in history. That and yesterday the Honda Fit officially outsold the Toyota "Jesus Car"...I mean Prius.

Jstas

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

This whole thing has been overblown since day 1. So there were a handful of accidents cause by bad floormats, that's too bad but people die from dumber stuff all the time.

I'm sure there have been Fords, Chevy, Dodge, BMW, Jag, etc etc that have also been wrecked due to a floormat getting jammed up.

I'm not saying it was a big government conspiracy to bring down the #1 selling automaker to boost the sales of the government subsidezed ameri-mexican automakers or anything like that, but the whole thing was way overblown and ridiculous.

I know, PEOPLE DIED!!!! and all that, but people die all the time from auto accidents, and I seriously doubt Toyota is at any more fault than the other auto makers in that respect.

My general rule of thumb is, things generally are neither quite as bad or quite as good as others would have you believe, and to me this whole thing is no exception to that rule.

Agreed.

AsSiMiLaTeD

To be clear, my comments aren't really directed towards Toyota, they're more directed towards the general over-raction of people as a whole.