balutsc300

iTrader: (1)

im loving those articles, although i am a hardcore toyota fanatic and my friends hate on me, I still believe toyota will come out of it and it just pains me to see that alot people are taking advantage of the situation.

TRDFantasy

Good job Toyota for going above and beyond with dealer service right now. This is the right thing to do.

Also that MSN Autos article is spot-on. I only wish it mentioned a bit more of the govt's harsh treatment of Toyota. The media is not the only culprit here.

flipside909

I doubt they will take that route. Nissan greatly respects TMC. In the 50th Anniversary special of Automotive News, the whole publication highlighted Toyota's story and accomplishments in America. There were even full page ads from competitor car companies (Nissan included) congratulating Toyota on their 50th year in America. It is a very good issue to read and collect.

pagemaster

http://www.thestar.com/business/arti...pr-experts-say

Toyota apology insincere, PR experts say
Automaker known for savvy branding seen lacking empathy, avoiding accountability in massive recall

TOKYO–Faced with an unprecedented recall of millions of vehicles and rivals swooping in on its customers, the public relations machine at Toyota Motor Corp. – one of the most savvy brand-creators in Asia – is floundering.

Toyota has consistently played down complaints of unintended acceleration, breaking what PR experts say is the cardinal rule in crisis management: assume the worst.

People want to see a company take full responsibility, be empathic to the victims and their families and be in control by outlining the problem and how they intend to solve it. They also expect the CEO doing all this," said Ong Hock Chuan of Jakarta-based PR consultancy Maverick, who specializes in crisis management. "Toyota seems to have failed in all counts."

Toyota president Akio Toyoda, the grandson of the company's founder, has not formally addressed the public or media on the recall problems.

Through November, the company continued to blame loose floor mats for the problem. That has eventually spread to a potential problem with accelerator pedals, and U.S. safety regulators are now renewing efforts to re-confirm whether the electronic throttle control system could have been at fault. At a news conference in Nagoya on Tuesday – the first appearance by an executive from headquarters since the recall expanded – there was no deep bow, a fixture in Japan when a firm takes responsibility for mistakes.

"There should have been a more convincing explanation, including from the president," said Masato Takahashi, a public relations consultant at Kyodo PR. "Even when they announced the recall initially, you can't just say, `We're going to do a recall.' They should have gone further in way of explanation, and there should have been a heartfelt apology from the top."

At the news conference, a little-known Toyota executive in charge of quality, Shinichi Sasaki, said part of the reason Toyota decided to use U.S. auto-parts maker CTS's accelerators was to help contribute to the local U.S. economy.

That was not what customers want to hear, PR consultants said, least of all when public memory is still horrified by a 911 call along with the sounds of the caller's Lexus crashing, killing its driver and three members of his family.

"It is an absolute disaster for a company which is Japanese, which has top-notch quality control, to have done it in such a spluttering manner," said Suhel Seth, managing partner of Indian brand management firm Counselage.

"What's worse is that in this case, this whole concept of the visible Japanese apology was so missing."

Toyota spokeswoman Mieko Iwasaki said the company had all along taken the steps it believed were the best and fastest to put its customers first. "If that was perceived as too slow, we will accept that as a sign of our shortcoming," she said.

For the past decade, Japan Inc. has tried to learn from past mistakes, when critics lambasted its habit of keeping data under wraps and its efforts to convey an image of calm deliberation.

After Bridgestone Corp. was forced to recall 17 million tires in 2000 following a series of deadly crashes, more companies have put in place crisis management procedures and turned to corporate communications firms for help.

Some argue that Toyota did what it could, as soon as it grasped the gravity of the problem. Toyota ran full-page ads in major newspapers on Sunday alerting consumers to the recall and production shutdown. Jim Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., appeared on American TV and expressed regret for worrying drivers.

Consumers in Japan have been slow to voice concern. "It seems to be a problem just in the U.S.," said Masanori Kawami, 63, who's taking delivery of a Prius this month.

But that nonchalance may not last. North American and Japanese dealers have been hit by more than 100 complaints about brake problems with the new Prius hybrid.



Its really pouring on poor Toyota.

spwolf

PR Experts from India and Jakarta agree on something!

spwolf

that article mirrors my opinion, although i would also include opportunist politicians trying to build their careers....

whoster

seriously?

why is an apology even necessary?

lexusscturbo

iTrader: (12)

Before people here start flogging on CTS...CTS just made the pedal, Toyota Designed it, they'll replicate something for the provided Engineering Order...and replicate it elveventy billion times. I'm sure their quality is up to high-standards...And their tolerances would have to be acceptable to what Toyota guided them to make.

lexusscturbo

iTrader: (12)

Well I guess that's a catch 22, less rental fleet vehicles sold possibly in the near future means higher resale values in the future. (as leasing/rentals cause resales to plummet).
Well that's in addition to Hertz which also stated,

spwolf

i am not so sure that it works that way dude... Otherwise Denso pedals would be affected as well.

Toyota might provide parameters they want from the part, but they do not actually design the whole part - CTS is expert in pedals, they do not "replicate something for provided engineering order". They have their own pedal solutions that they adapt to the client specific needs.

lexusscturbo

iTrader: (12)

That's CTS's 2cents

LexBob2

I agree. It's what they do about that's important.

MPLexus301

iTrader: (3)

So....do we start a new topic for the Prius or loop it in here?

spwolf

so on one hand you have analysts claiming Toyota quality went down because they are letting suppliers design parts, and on the other hand CTS says they did not design it.

So how can both be true?

And why did FORD RECALL VANS IN CHINA THAT HAVE CTS PEDALS?
http://www.calgaryherald.com/Ford+ha...550/story.html


Is Toyota designing FORD pedals these days? :-)

jruhi4

The formerly separate Prius brakes thread was already looped in here.