Poor Toyota...

USFREEDOM911 said:
UHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.....What was the Corvair thing??
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Okay, now I feel old!!

Back in the 1960s, Chevrolet had a new small compact car called the Corvair.. rear engine, designed to compete with the Volkswagens... but they were designed poorly, and this happened:

A variety of factors contributed to the Corvair's sales to plummet after 1965. Safety issues had been raised in "The Sporty Corvair" chapter of Ralph Nader's book Unsafe at Any Speed.[10] in which the 1960-63 Corvair was used as a dramatic case study. Nader asserted a greater tendency of loss of driver control, spin-out and even roll-over due to the car's swing axle design rear suspension. Published in 1965, it contributed to falling Corvair sales, although to what degree is not known. Development & Engineering changes where halted in 1966 on the year-old, redesigned second-generation cars with only Federally-mandated emissions and safety changes made therafter through the final 1969 models.
Chevrolet Corvair - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It is basically what made Ralph Nader famous.
 
Dixie said:
Okay, now I feel old!!

Back in the 1960s, Chevrolet had a new small compact car called the Corvair.. rear engine, designed to compete with the Volkswagens... but they were designed poorly, and this happened:

A variety of factors contributed to the Corvair's sales to plummet after 1965. Safety issues had been raised in "The Sporty Corvair" chapter of Ralph Nader's book Unsafe at Any Speed.[10] in which the 1960-63 Corvair was used as a dramatic case study. Nader asserted a greater tendency of loss of driver control, spin-out and even roll-over due to the car's swing axle design rear suspension. Published in 1965, it contributed to falling Corvair sales, although to what degree is not known. Development & Engineering changes where halted in 1966 on the year-old, redesigned second-generation cars with only Federally-mandated emissions and safety changes made therafter through the final 1969 models.
Chevrolet Corvair - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It is basically what made Ralph Nader famous.
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This is also what made Ralph Nader a liar. He admitted years later that his report was incorrect; but the damage was done and Corvair never recovered.
I owned three diffrent models, all at the same time, and they were fantastic.
I'd still have them if the parts hadn't been so hard to get, just for minor repairs.

110 air cooled engine. What better car for Arizona.
 
USFREEDOM911 said:
This is also what made Ralph Nader a liar. He admitted years later that his report was incorrect; but the damage was done and Corvair never recovered.
I owned three diffrent models, all at the same time, and they were fantastic.
I'd still have them if the parts hadn't been so hard to get, just for minor repairs.

110 air cooled engine. What better car for Arizona.
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I was not aware of the full history on this, I always liked the Corvair. My mentioning of it here, was in regard to the fact it was "model specific" and the remedy (for better or worse -- justified or not) was dumping the model. Toyota will have a tough time dumping their best selling models, and the heart and soul of their brand. This isn't just about the Camry... if that were the case, Toyota drops the Camry and life goes on... this is about Toyota! That's not good!
 
I had a Camery, drove that car from Tampa, to Calgery, to Chicago, to Washington, D.C then back to Tampa, that was the longest of many trips...

I had 177,000 when I sold it for $750.00. That car was awsome!
 
tom prendergast said:
So how come there wasn't anything like the same problems here? The Toyota plant in Derbyshire is not far from where I live and I can't help thinking that much of this was hysterics and a media feeding frenzy. They have recalled over 2 million cars in the UK and Europe so you can't claim that we are that different except maybe US drivers are technically inferior to European drivers or that US cars mostly have automatic gearboxes.
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Nice try Tom. I'm not going to be baited into an "Amercan vs European drivers" argument. There's lousy drivers every where.

The point is, is if Toyota had been paying attention to the feed back they had been getting before it had become a media feeding frenzy then we wouldn't even be having this discussion. That was my whole point of my discussion on quality control. Toyota made a major mistake in distancing them selves from their customers. Considering the US is a huge percentage of their customer base your comments aren't exactly relevent. Toyota had a serious quality issue and they didn't respond to it in an adequate fashion and it snow balled on them.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Nice try Tom. I'm not going to be baited into an "Amercan vs European drivers" argument. There's lousy drivers every where.
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I suppose there are lousy drivers everywhere but I have still never seen anything in my life like the driving in France. Nobody really understands the concept of a lane and that goes more than double when you use one of their roundabouts, it really is every man for himself and just seems so ironic considering they are like the poster boys for anti-capitalism.
Saw a guy get out of his car and start chasing off a squeegie kid for nothing at a traffic light and hold up people, saw a guy in a van bump into a guy on a bike and have words for 20 minutes til a cop broke it up. They just seem very agitated, rushed, think they are equal with pedestrians. I was left with the impression that if you want to drive there you better be ready to fight.

A lot of times when I relay that experience, I am told Italians (in Italy) are even worse.
 
I think Dixie makes a great point here.

I'd also ask how many recalls has Ford, Chrysler and GM had? I remember Ford with the Firestone tires, that was a much bigger safety risk, yet I don't remember it generating this much damnation.

It's important to remember that the same leftwing Democrats in power now have a history of targeting Japanese or foreign automakers, remember when the Clinton admin slammed them with huge tariffs?
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/18/opinion/the-100000-lexus.html?pagewanted=1

It's not just about the government showing favoritism now that they are so heavily involved with GM and Chrysler but they have always shown favoritism because they only give a shit about unionized jobs which the big 3 have.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Nice try Tom. I'm not going to be baited into an "Amercan vs European drivers" argument. There's lousy drivers every where.

The point is, is if Toyota had been paying attention to the feed back they had been getting before it had become a media feeding frenzy then we wouldn't even be having this discussion. That was my whole point of my discussion on quality control. Toyota made a major mistake in distancing them selves from their customers. Considering the US is a huge percentage of their customer base your comments aren't exactly relevent. Toyota had a serious quality issue and they didn't respond to it in an adequate fashion and it snow balled on them.
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I still think most of the problem was media hype, they tried to do the same over here but the story just fizzled out as Toyota has a first class reputation which they couldn't tarnish.
 
tom prendergast said:
I still think most of the problem was media hype, they tried to do the same over here but the story just fizzled out as Toyota has a first class reputation which they couldn't tarnish.
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Today, we have a guy in California who had an incident with his Prius... he couldn't get it to stop, accelerator stuck, he melted down his brakes getting it halted with the help of a patrolman. He is asking for a new car... but here is the problem... the Prius was not one of the cars effected by this other problem, they have a built-in feature to kill the engine if the brakes and gas are being applied at the same time. They have examined his car, and can not replicate what he claims happened. And oh by the way, the guy is in debt to the tune of about $700k, and behind on his car payment.... not that this means a thing, I am sure!
 
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