Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota Motors, is a lucky man. Lucky he’s living in the 21st Century. Because not so long ago, a Japanese man facing dishonor and public humiliation would have been expected to commit suicide.
Instead, Toyoda may only end up resigning in shame as more and more Toyota vehicles are recalled for serious mechanical and electronic defects. Today, the vaunted Prius was added to the recall list. And there are strong indications that some Corollas will also be recalled for an entirely new problem related to their steering.
Toyota is being savaged by the media. But even allowing for media hype and exaggeration, it’s becoming impossible to minimize the issue. Clearly there are problems, apparently widespread, serious safety problems related to acceleration, braking, and steering. Not exactly your garden variety door-sticking, window-leaking, glove-box-rattling gripes. These are the most basic, critical operating systems in any car. More and more the recalls suggest the possibility of a systemic problem with the company’s whole approach to design, testing, and assembly. And more and more, Toyota’s seemingly reluctant response suggests a lack of concern for safety and consumer confidence, once the company’s hallmark.
Yes, the rather secretive, slow-to-react, not-forthcoming Akio Toyoda is a very lucky man.
McCain and Palin
I was shocked and deeply disappointed when John McCain named Sarah Palin as his GOP running mate back in 2008. Since then, I’ve just been getting angrier and angrier.
He created and loosed upon us the creature that has haunted us ever since. He lifted her from obscurity, pumped her full of political one-liners, dreams of power and influence, and an inflated sense of self-importance, and introduced her to the nation as an honest-to-gosh GOP-endorsed vice-presidential candidate.
She responded to the lights, the attention, the potential title, fame, and fortune, like the stereotypical small-town stagestruck beauty queen she is. Winky, flirty, folksy, aren’t I adorable, ad nauseum. The really scary thing is, she bought into the McCain hype — hook, line, and sinker. She really thinks she has a future in national politics. She really thinks she can lead the country.
Now we are beset by this giant living Barbie doll asking questions like “how’s that hopey changey stuff workin’ out for ya?”
Aww, isn’t that just the cutest thing!? Doncha just want to hug her to death? Bless her heart, she’s just adorable!
Gag! Blech! Wretch! Hurl!
You Tea Party people, get a clue. She doesn’t care a thing about you. She’s just looking for a way to promote herself, another stage to strut across. Remember, she dropped her Alaska constituency like a hot rock, quitting her governorship in mid-term when greater fame and fortune beckoned. In her book (ghostwritten by Lynn Vincent), she trashed the McCain organization, showing no gratitude whatsoever for the people who made her a national figure in the first place. This woman is interested in power and self-promotion, not responsibility and public service.
Mom used to caution us when we paid too much attention to a show-off or blowhard:
Shhh, you’ll just encourage her.
Mom, was right, as usual.
You did this, John McCain. You created this monster and now she’s running amok, frighteningly ill informed and with delusions of grandeur, aided and abetted by misguided voters and the insatiable media. I hope you can sleep nights, Senator.
I guess it’s a good thing I’m retired, because things I would have been all over once upon a time are now flying right by me.
I was browsing for some “Super Bowl” info today, and Google asked me if I meant “Superbowl.” No, you stupid computer program, it’s not one word. Ah, but I was mistaken … sort of. I soon realized that one spelling was about as common as the other. Funny, I’d never really noticed before.
Anyway, I was looking for stories about the SB ads. And, in particular, the Tebow Focus on the Family ad. After all the furor leading up to it, I’d somehow missed it. But then I spent most of the game struggling against the decades-old habit of tuning out ads. I fully intended to watch them, yet I managed to miss a bunch of them. I was waiting for the Budweiser clydesdales and still missed half of that one. And I found out later there’d been one with Leno, Letterman, and Oprah and another with Betty White. Totally missed those.
Unfortunately, I didn’t miss the halftime show. Who doesn’t like The Who? But they made the mistake of trying to do their own playing and singing instead of lip synching the studio recordings we all know by heart. Ugh. It was painful.
But I did see the game. Which was the point of all this, after all. Loved it! I knew the Saints were supposedly the underdogs, yet were also the sentimental favorite. I’m delighted they won, and handily too — 31-17. I’m happy for them, happy for New Orleans. Congratulations, Saints.
Tsk, tsk, Toyota. What a mess you’re in. We, the American consumers, don’t really know what to believe right now.
We’ve purchased your cars for several decades, confident that we had one of the most reliable vehicles on the road and one that would last a long, long time. I, for one, have been reasonably certain my next vehicle would be a Toyota.
But now you have this huge recall thing going on and we don’t know who to believe. Should we believe you? It seems like you first had a problem several months ago when we heard about floormats causing gas pedals to jam. It didn’t seem like a big deal then, but now you’ve issued two more, increasing larger recalls for gas pedals that stick. Same problem? Sure sounds like there might be a connection that you just aren’t admitting.
Priuses weren’t included in the recalls until yesterday. Then the word went out that they had a possible electronics problem that was causing unexpected acceleration. Now it’s electrontics? Do you people know what you’re doing?
The media, of course, are going nuts with the story, but you know that. What you don’t seem to be doing is getting ahead of them with your own explanations about these things. So pols in Washington are speculating, pundits are speculating, and you’d better believe consumers are speculating!
I hope CNN is wrong when they say your fix is a shim. In my experience, a shim is a make-do, work-around, down-and-dirty way of fixing something that should have fit properly in the first place. A shim is something you jam into a space to bring two misaligned parts into alignment. You wouldn’t use it against a moving part because it might work loose. I wouldn’t feel safe thinking my accelerator relied on a shim to keep working properly.
Let’s just say I’m worried about my relatives who drive Toyota vehicles (at least three come to mind immediately). And I’m just about ready to cross Toyota off my list of possible next cars. I have a long memory about these things, too. Explorers and Firestone tires — to this day I wouldn’t touch either with a ten-foot pole. Whatever time you had to solve this problem and salvage your reputation is rapidly running out.
