Ramblings from a simple and sometimes twisted mind. Oh yes, that’d be me.
So you want to go faster
For those of you who want some car-munication…What’s up with Toyota these days?
Hold it right there, before we go any further, my internal lawyer who’s driven by my internal bottom line cruncher (BLC) is infiltrating my consciousness. Or in other words, trying to save my ass. This arising informs me that I must make the following statement at this time: All following statements and written material herein are in no way a reflection on or representation of Toyota Motor Corp, any individuals, companies and corporations that are employed directly or indirectly by any means, including and not limited to subcontracting by Toyota Motor Corporation. Whew – I hope that’s good enough lawyer talk, because let’s face it–I’m just a mechanic!
So, here we go: let’s look at the current accelerator-sticking situation facing Toyota. I was driving across town the other day to get a part. Yes, I’m the part-time Parts gofer. Can’t you just imagine a gopher with the big tooth thing and auto parts hanging out of his mouth, nervously racing across town trying to get the desired parts to the hungry mechanics, who have even bigger teeth and growl when they’re being delayed? So my focus drifted to the radio squawk on NPR. Their program started out; “You will not hear this anywhere else” so of course that got my attention and I immediately perked up like an 18 year old male thinking he’s gonna get some… Essentially what NPR was trying to convey was that accelerator sticking complaints are nothing new to the auto industry and in fact Toyota isn’t the only manufacturer that’s had this problem. They go on to talk about Honda and VW having similar problems and how those seemed to have disappeared after a time without incurring much fallout. One point made is comparing the rate of the market share a manufacture has versus the rate of complaints they got (in 2002 Toyota had 10% market share versus 19% of complaints). They go on to comment on how the regulatory agencies should monitor the situation better, especially when there are more complaints than market share. Actually I found the piece very interesting, so for your dining pleasure here’s their link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124276771. Enjoy—and more on this in a later post.