Topic: Toyota Gets Off The Mat To Throw A Punch

[MG]

This is getting ridiculous. The cockroaches are circling the carcass, just itching to feast on Toyota.  Already, 88 lawsuits have been filed, alleging that  Toyota has knowingly and deliberately been selling dangerous automobiles for a decade or more and covering it up, with the collusion of NHTSA.

But now, one intrepid online reporter cries BULLSHIT!

Read it and see what you think. 

Assuming you think anything about it at all.   

[Ultra]

That was the best reporting you have ever done.

[MG]

Awwwww, shucks........


It WAS pretty good though, wasn't it?   


Clarence Ditlow and his co-conspirator, Joan "I never worked a day in my life" Claybrook can kiss my royal ass!   

[Otto Puzzell]

Your article states:

Subsequent examination of his car by Toyota and federal investigators, however, found that the throttle and the brakes had been operated to their maximum extent 250 times during the "ordeal" and that the software that shuts down the engine if the throttle and the brakes are applied at the same time was working perfectly.

The NHSTA says:

We would caution people that our work continues and that we may never know exactly what happened with this car… It is rare to recreate these unintended acceleration incidents except in floor mat entrapment cases.”

These seem to be at odds. Was their a subsequent release from said agency?

All things considered, Toyota benefited mightily from the poor reputations of American cars that were partially earned, partially urban legend and seasoned with anecdotes like "my brother-in-laws accountant's mom's Pontiac's transmission fell out on the highway". What goes around, comes around. Toyota's own stonewalling made this mess a lot worse than it could have been.

[MG]

Your observations are cogent, as always, sir.  I am always reminded of an issue my wife had with her '96 Saturn coupe. She told me one day her brakes failed. I drove the car. My service manager drove the car. The zone technical representative drove the car. It was fine. Then one day, while I was driving, the brake pedal went straight to the floor and I coasted through an intersection with my forward progress unretarded. Pumping the pedal brought the brake system back to life as if nothing had happened. But is was a Code Brown moment for sure.   

So I am aware that it is virtually impossible to prove what may or may not have happened within an electronic device at any particular time. Which is one reason why I am unalterably opposed to electronic voting machines that provide no printed record for the voter.

As to Toyota's culture of obfuscation, I wrote a story regarding that very point a while ago. You may find it interesting. Toyota Culture

All large corporations have a tendency to become insular and somewhat removed from reality. Despite the fact that the Tylenol example is still taught in B Schools as the ideal way to deal with a product safely issue, most refuse to follow that path and Toyota is no different.  But while we are piling on Toyota, keep in mind that product recalls are ubiquitous. GM is currently recalling almost a million Cobalts due to a tendency for the electric power steering to fail at inconvenient moments. Honda power window switches may short circuit and cause fires if the windows are left down in a monsoon. There are zillions of recalls, safety campaigns and Technical Service Bulletins out there. If we knew everything there is to know about unsafe products, we would never get out of bed in the morning - unless our electric blanket malfunctions and tries to turn us into a self contained funeral pyre!