mbarron37

Just inquired this morning to our local Toyota dealership about test driving the Grand Highlander was disappointed to hear back that there is a stop sale and recall. At first I thought it was an engine issue, but is due to side curtain airbags.

we are heading out today to test drive other makes and models, but I guess we will have to wait on the Grand Highlander.

https://www.kbb.com/car-news/recall-alert-toyota-grand-highlander-lexus-tx/

LH1

Yea I read about this yesterday. Apparently if the driver side window is down the side airbag might not deploy correctly in an accident.

​​​​​​Toyota better pray the GX 550 doesn't have the same issues as the Tundra/LX 600.

Oh btw, new Tacomas having transmission issues. Wtf is going on Toyota?!

mbarron37

Yes, seems a few missteps by Toyota.

This is for my wife, as she wants to test drive an Acura MDX (which she has now), Ford Bronco, Nissan Murano (she had one years ago and she loved it).

She will test drive the Grand Highlander once it is removed from stop sale. We were never in a rush to purchase a new vehicle.

That’s my Saturday 👎👎

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

i've seen a few new mdx on the road. looks sharp.

703

I’m not so sure about reliability of the new Land Cruiser as well. The engine bay looks like a mess. Try fixing anything in there.

mmarshall

Very simple....it is not the 1990s anymore, when both Toyota and Honda were at their peak. Starting around 2000 or so for Toyota, and a little later than that for Honda, they slowly but surely started losing their build-quality to the bean-counters. It did not affect all of their vehicles immediately, or at the same time, but, in general, it was a slow but steady decline.

LeX2K

Correct. Models that were made in Japan and/or remained on a tried and true platform were still good for most of the 2010's after that not so much.

703

yep. Most were overbuild and are simple machinery. Now the bean counters have got to every single component, including fasteners and thickness of wire harnesses.

I wonder how long they can ride on the past reputation of reliability to sell at a premium.

situman

The problem that I am seeing is that Toyota has released toooooo many products over the last two years. GX, Tacoma, Tundra, Sequoia, LX, Camry, GH, Land Cruiser, 4Runner, GR Corolla, Prius, RX, Corolla Cross and maybe I missed 1 or two model refreshes. Toyota went from introducing basically nothing over the last 10 to 15yra to opening the dam. How can you possibly test each model properly? Or configure the factories in various regions to produce quality products at such a fevered pace?

The pitfall of modular components is the modularity. If 1 component goes bad, it permeates throughout your lineup and you pay through the azz to fix it.

Striker223

I would argue that the modular system isn't the issue but rather they are now playing a game they delayed practicing for over a decade and all the skilled engineers are working at other companies. They should have done more serious testing and "overkill" designs for their first wave of turbo engines.

situman

The engine recall will cost Toyota hundreds of millions, if not billions if they have to replace it with new engines. In this instance with the airbags, someone fell asleep.

Between the recalls and stop sales, it will cost Toyota dearly, both in reputation and monetary.

I dunno if competent engineers left the company. If I have to guess, if you are an automotive engineer in Japan, your dream is to work for Toyota.

Striker223

Sure but offer the same tier of "global talent" the choice between Toyota and the big German 3 and it's clear where people tend to end up. The American brands have some killer performance teams but that's about it over here and that's only because of what those individual cars mean in an emotional context for many.

VAG in particular has so many desirable brands it's a big draw on talent, would you rather work on a GR corolla or a 911 GT3RS?

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

what you wrote makes no sense lol... but then you're just a little bit biased. so you're saying engineers wouldn't love to work on american trucks? (doesn't have to be 'killer performance').

Motorola

I agree. I don't know where this oft-repeated idea that Toyota would miraculously be able to "leapfrog" the competition comes from, but it hasn't been the case for either turbos or EV's. Other brands have spent the past few years if not couple decades perfecting and widely implementing their modern powertrains and other technologies, and Toyota/Lexus more or less coasted on their naturally aspirated offerings and mousepads up until very recently. Now lo and behold, they're having some of the same issues that other brands had years prior. Same can be said with EV's. The only field that Toyota has been iteratively improving time and again is their hybrid technology. But for the company that wrote the rulebook on Kaizen, it's strange to see them more or less ignore it.

I still can't wrap my head around how poor the product planning and engineering was for the outgoing ES where they were physically unable to fit an AWD system with the V6.

Striker223

Given the choice no. The truck teams are also under the umbrella I mentioned btw, that's a separate type of performance but offer any of those guys a chance to work on supercars instead and they would take it.