We know these things because we are car people and keep up with the market and the industry.....we discuss cars day and night.

But, for the most part, that is not true of the American car-buying public as a whole. So, as far as they are concerned, if they see a vehicle with the name "Toyota" on it, and parts on it are flimsy, poorly done, improperly assembled, made with cheap materials, etc..... they're not going to look up the name of every supplier who sent shipments to the plant where the vehicle was made and then sit down and try to figure out who was responsible for what. They only know one thing.....that the new Toyota they are looking at (or bought) has some sub-standard parts on it, and they will judge the vehicle......and the nameplate........accordingly.

When you put your auto company's logo on a vehicle, you stand behind every part on that car....like it or not. I'm not saying it is the fairest judgement or system, but that is just the way the auto industry works. Honda found that out years ago (a classic example) when they evaded the job of desiging their own in-house SUVs and made a buisness deal with Isuzu to sell Isuzu-produced SUV's in return for giving Isuzu rebadged Honda Civics for sale as the Japanese-market Isuzu I-Mark.
Customers who were used to impeccable Honda quality had to put up with worse-than-average reliability and unrefined performance from the Honda Passport (a rebadged Isuzu Rodeo), and tipsiness/instability with the Acura SLX, a rebadged Isuzu Trooper.

 

I agree with what the average consumer will percieve. It's quite obvious that Toyota knows the severity of it's quality problems and that it's working to solve these problems. Doesn't matter where the problem is coming from, it has to be solved.

 

You betcha, if I'm the consumer and the car doesn't function properly as a result. Ask the guy with the Tundra and the lift gate defect if he's going to be sympathetic because it's Toyota and the part they put on the truck came from an outside supplier. He's not going to care one whit.

As the manufacturer you are responsible for the content of your product. Or should we start to give everyone a free pass because, guess what, they all use outside suppliers.

 

Like I said, Toyota has already taken responsibility as well as taken measures to address the problems, whether they are supplier-related or not.

 

Damn.. Am I the lucky one. With $8000 off ($5k from the dealer and $3K rebate from Toyota) and ZERO % financing for 60 mos. I ALMOST picked up the 07 V8 Tundra double cab w/long bed for just $21K (after negotiation) this past weekend. They were willing to let a $30K vehicle go for just $21K.

 

I just find it funny the people ringing the death toll for TOyota and actually ENJOYING the bad press. So we are to forget their history of superb quality the last 40 years?

No. All the signs pointed to trouble to experts, huge growth and expansion and controlling of costs. Then they can't even HIRE enough qualified people.

They still rank high overall in quality. We have to remember this is a new truck, new plant, new process, new everything.

I didn't see this much complaining when the Infiniti QX56 came out, the worst quality truck in recent memory. AND ITS BADGED A LUXURY TRUCK!!

IMO, that is far worse than this TUndra tailgate crap.

 

I think you contradicted yourself there, Mike. Yes, a supplier can make or break a car but your own next sentence basically says it was *GM* who BROKE the suppliers by keeping their cajones in a vice without doing much quality control on the resulting parts. Ergo, disaster.

Yes, but if those parts end up being bad, I don't care of it's called Kaizen or a sex orgy, the parts are still bad and that's ULTIMATELY Toyota's fault for not catching the problems in TESTING. There's a saying in software... if a bug is found in testing it costs $1 to fix. If it's found in 'beta' testing with customers it costs (x10) $10 to fix. And if it's found in actual paying customers it costs $100 (x100) to fix. Thus the importance of testing.

I think Toyota's breakneck pace and aggressive ambition for 15% of global auto sales has caused them to cut corners.

But the massive difference between say GM in the 80's and Toyota now is that GM continued to IGNORE obvious pathetic problems with their culture, process, and product. Toyota thankfully has a culture where they're HELL BENT on making it right. I wish only the best for them but they've suddenly got more problems to fix than anyone bargained for and it will require some looking at their processes and not just the products currently having problems. Quality is ultimately a process problem, not a product problem.

Doesn't matter - if you subcontract work you are responsible for the end result as far as the customer goes. Blaming the subcontractor doesn't help. When having a builder build you a house, they use subcontractors for various parts of the job. If the roofer does a bad job, I still blame the builder.

Well in that case as I understand it Toyota had a lot to do working with the supplier (Denso?) on the design, particularly integrating other systems in with it (climate control, audio, etc.) and overall user interface. Denso also makes Acura's I believe, but only Toyota/Lexus had their overall look and feel.

Not necessarily. If you have no good process to DETECT weak suppliers, you will definitely fail.

Not me at least. Yes I've been critical of Toyota/Lexus moreso recently, because they've had problems and because they're NOT perfect.

It's called the penalty of leadership. When you've become the big dog (Toyota) and have a reputation built on reliability and quality, ****** in that armor are gonna hurt big time. Even if the QX56 were PERFECT it still would have sold like the black plague.

But the QX56 isn't trying to dethrone LEGENDS like the F-150 - Toyota's REALLY taken on an ambitious task, so setbacks will really be noticeable. Nissan tried and failed so far, but they may have a much better offering next time, who knows. Nissan's actually been at the full size truck longer than Toyota now. But no doubt the new Tundra is a GIANT step for Toyota and they were very close but cheaped out on some things that they're paying the price for, although overall sales are still VERY impressive and most of those owners will never see the problems because they don't really tax their trucks.

Anyway, let's hope deeds follow words here from this executive and the fixes and changes are clear and positive.

 

It wasn't just the QX56, Mike. Just about all of the Nissan-Infiniti badged vehicles coming out of the canton, MS plant had problems.

As far as "enjoying" bad press, three things. First, I, personally, don't enjoy seeing any auto company dropping the quality of the vehicles....so I'm certainly not enjoying reading about it (and in my case, of course, in reviews, I've seen some of it for myself...and brought it up as an issue on CAR CHAT even before it made the general auto press) . Second, Toyota's drop (so far), while noticeable in some of the new interiors and hardware, has been nothing compared to what happened to Mercedes-Benz in the late 1990's, and, to an extent, starting back as early as 1994.....and, as you point out, with some of the Nissan-Infiniti vehicles from the Canton plant. Third, unlike most auto chat forums on the Internet, we here on CAR CHAT, in many ways, are our OWN auto press.......yes, this forum is THAT good.

 

When i did mention that this could be a supplier issue, you have to look at the new many suppliers that were given contracts for building the Tundra in TX, which Toyota has been championing the "MINORITY" part. I know that being that MINORTY has nothing to do with the quality issue, but are these 'tier 1' suppliers on par?...I don't know if Toyota has ever used them in the past for the North American plants.

http://www.magrabbit.com/press_release1.asp?pressID=2

 

As long as they keep letting nippendenso design their electronics I don't care

 

Nobody, not me at least, is celebrating because Toyota is having quality issues. I personally find that childish. But I don't believe ANY company is beyond criticism. I'm not going to make excuses for them because they're Toyota any more than I'm going to make excuses for Nissan or Honda. When one of Toyota's own execs calls the issues they are experiencing shameful I think it is a bit out ot touch with reality for anyone else to act as if it's not that big a deal. We should be no more forgiving of Toyota than we are any other company for slips in quality. That will motivate them to maintain their traditional standard.

Unlike all that PR hand waving and hokus-pocus about "warranty enhancements" and the like, this exec has called it what it is. I think this is the most refreshing thing anyone inside the company has said since these issues started. It's some of that good ole-fashioned Japanese honor coming to the fore.

 

ALways a pleasure chatting with you dude.

 

Well, like I told Paul, I'm not even a big Toyota guy. Only b/c of Lexus. I don't post all over the world anymore but I do browse and its AMAZING the hate parade that is loving how Toyota is slipping some.

 

Are you serious? What a stretch, suppliers, minority or otherwise are approved by Toyota, the buck stops with Toyota, stop with the double standard or extend them to all manufacturers.

 

I'm seeing Visteon and Delphi in Toyotas now.