Toyota knew about Lexus problem 2 years ago

[UNC017]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd


Personally, I'd much rather Chrysler recall my van and fix the stupid thing. They had to do that with the 5th gen vans, because the power sliding doors were starting fires (that's a more noticeable problem). But losing a little refrigerant or coolant? Ahh, small potatoes.


Yeah, even though I'm a Mopar guy, I've been bitten by one TSB-but-never-a-recall: the AC evaporator on first-generation LH cars that would always eventually corrode away. TSBs existed to replace it with an upgraded part WHEN it failed (beyond warranty), but no recall.

To be fair to all the manufacturers- they're much more likely to dodge issuing a recall for non-life-threatening defects, and especially if they tend to happen up around 100k miles most of the time like the LH evap cores and the minivan rear-AC tubes did. No one ever died from a failed A/C (although it might feel like you're gonna). Fires from cracked fuel rails or minivan doors, breaking valvesprings that could cause a stall in traffic- that sort of thing is a bit more critical. When the first-gen 3.5 fuel rails started cracking, I replaced a set at my own expense. When Chrysler issued a recall notice a few months later, they reimbursed me for the set I'd bought AND replaced them again with an upgraded design.

 

[ekpolk]

Originally Posted By: Troy_Built
+1 It makes our domestic look great.
I'll stick with my Fords though.


Does it really make "domestic look great"? I find the constant drive to compare interesting. With that in mind, I think it makes Toyota look like they're trying to catch up from their self-induced mess.

How about this comparison: a post-wty Toyota customer with a recall car gets a new set of valve springs, on Toyota's dime. A post-wty GM customer who owns a car with the 60-degree V-6 (e.g. 3.1, 3.4L, etc.) and suffers the all-too-common engine-killing lower intake manifold leak is told, sorry, take a hike, you're wty has expired.

GM has known of this issue for at least a decade, probably longer, and is content to do nothing for its customers.

So, how does the fact that Toyota issues a recall under these circumstances, arguably later than its critics would like, whereas GM stubbornly refuses to recall a know problem for many years, make domestics look better than Toyota?

 

[ekpolk]

Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
...When the first-gen 3.5 fuel rails started cracking, I replaced a set at my own expense. When Chrysler issued a recall notice a few months later, they reimbursed me for the set I'd bought AND replaced them again with an upgraded design.


Good for Chrysler. That's the way it ought to be done, by all car makers, period.

 

[Jeepster_nut]

A friend of mine just bought a 2011 Camry and it is built on the cheap. Cheap feeling cloth on seats, and cheap silver interior pieces and cheap feeling plastics. I wouldn't touch a Toyota with a 10 foot pole...

 

[ekpolk]

Originally Posted By: Jeepster_nut
A friend of mine just bought a 2011 Camry and it is built on the cheap. Cheap feeling cloth on seats, and cheap silver interior pieces and cheap feeling plastics. I wouldn't touch a Toyota with a 10 foot pole...


The above is exactly the sort of post that causes problems in these threads. It has NOTHING to do with the original post. Whether or not you agree with the premise of the OP (linking to a story involving Toyota issuing a recall on an engine issue that has reportedly been known about for two years), one's preference on car interiors, or willingness to buy, are irrelevant. But since you felt compelled. . .

Hey, if you don't like the feeling of a Toyota interior, that's your choice. But to judge the whole car on that basis -- quite frankly, that's not too bright. Newsflash, the Camry is NOT a Lexus, and it's not meant to be. It's meant to be a good, solid mid-size sedan that can still be profitable with a base MSRP under $20,000 (barely...). If you want the car that's meant to sell at inexpensive prices, well, you're going to get an inexpensive interior (though I don't find mine, which has leather seats, bad at all...).

So now, we're going to hammer on Toyota because they're not giving customers free lunches? Oh, that's fair allright.

Hey, if you want the ultra-cush interior version of the Camry, buy a Lexus ES-350. Same car -- fancier stuff.

Do you expect Chevrolet to install Cadillac interiors in their cars? Or Ford to put Lincoln interiors in theirs? Is this that hard to grasp?

 

[mechanicx]

Originally Posted By: ekpolk
Originally Posted By: Troy_Built
+1 It makes our domestic look great.
I'll stick with my Fords though.


Does it really make "domestic look great"? I find the constant drive to compare interesting. With that in mind, I think it makes Toyota look like they're trying to catch up from their self-induced mess.

How about this comparison: a post-wty Toyota customer with a recall car gets a new set of valve springs, on Toyota's dime. A post-wty GM customer who owns a car with the 60-degree V-6 (e.g. 3.1, 3.4L, etc.) and suffers the all-too-common engine-killing lower intake manifold leak is told, sorry, take a hike, you're wty has expired.

GM has known of this issue for at least a decade, probably longer, and is content to do nothing for its customers.

So, how does the fact that Toyota issues a recall under these circumstances, arguably later than its critics would like, whereas GM stubbornly refuses to recall a know problem for many years, make domestics look better than Toyota?


You are making an apples and oranges comparison again. Manufactures don't generally recall a non-safety related durability issue.

 

[ItsuMitsubishi]

Originally Posted By: Troy_Built
Ahhhh Toyota, Toyota, where has your quality gone Toyota?


That went out lockstep with the 80's. It's been a penny pinching, money grubbing horror show ever since

 

[ekpolk]

Originally Posted By: mechanicx
...
You are making an apples and oranges comparison again. Manufactures don't generally recall a non-safety related durability issue.


GM very much wants people to see this as a "mere" durability issue. But it too has safety implications, ironically, the potential for unexpected engine failure, in this instance when dying bearings allow the engine to suddenly seize. Here's how I just addressed the question in the near-parallel thread:
Originally Posted By: ekpolk
I was comparing the two problems, and I do think they're comparable. The valve spring issue, just like the leaky LIMs can cause either a slow degradation/decline in performance that you might, if you're lucky, catch before an outright failure. The LIM thing is very close to the same. If you're right on top of all maintenance, you'll probably catch it when your coolant starts going away, and your oil gets milky; likely before any serious harm is done. But if not, you very well do risk a sudden failure when your bearings finally give way and your engine seizes.

Is an engine failure, especially an unexpected one, any safer because it results from a leak-driven bearing failure, than one from a bad valve spring? I think not.

In both cases, we have an engine build quality issue, both having potential safety implications (beyond all the customer satisfaction matters). GM's record of being very slow to respond to their problem is very relevant when Toyota is getting hammered as a bunch of insensitive bad guys for not immediately stepping up and fixing theirs. Are there still important differences? Sure, no question about it. But it still remains relevant, especially since there are still so many GM cars out there with the problem. And even if we assume (which I don't) that it's not a "recallable problem", GM could certainly notify customers about it so that they might effect repairs before losing an engine by surprise. But they don't seem willing to...

If Toyota and the other imports (Honda and its airbags, etc.) are going to be hammered for not instantly stepping up, as if that's something uniquely bad to them, then on-going (maybe old, but still on-going...) cases in which domestic makers don't step right up are fair game in rebuttal.

 

[ekpolk]

Originally Posted By: ItsuMitsubishi
Originally Posted By: Troy_Built
Ahhhh Toyota, Toyota, where has your quality gone Toyota?


That went out lockstep with the 80's. It's been a penny pinching, money grubbing horror show ever since

And what on earth does that have to do with the original post???? Our Toyotas have been so awful that we just keep buying them. . . Zzzzzzzzzz...

EDIT: And if it's true, as you state in your sig block, that, "Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave" -- you should be careful. It appears that you may still be slave-qualified.

 

[ItsuMitsubishi]

Originally Posted By: ekpolk
Originally Posted By: ItsuMitsubishi
Originally Posted By: Troy_Built
Ahhhh Toyota, Toyota, where has your quality gone Toyota?


That went out lockstep with the 80's. It's been a penny pinching, money grubbing horror show ever since

And what on earth does that have to do with the original post???? Our Toyotas have been so awful that we just keep buying them. . . Zzzzzzzzzz...

EDIT: And if it's true, as you state in your sig block, that, "Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave" -- you should be careful. It appears that you may still be slave-qualified.

To be fair, it's not that theyre any worse than any other car out there, it's just that they were once regarded for consistently higher than average build quality than the competition. The big turn off is this newer attitude of management- rush to market, wear down production costs and hide all your mistakes. This can really marr the work of fantastic engineers, and it's a perennial story of industry. I didn't mean to make any kind of judgement on anyone's purchase choices. I'd drive a Toyota any day over say the big three aside from the Opel based GMs, Mazda based Fords and Mercedes based Chryslers.

 

[ekpolk]

I would certainly agree that Toyota management has been as guilty as anyone of making judgment calls that have enamored them of nobody. I agree that it is a perennial story of industry. The corporate form of business, especially in large settings, works very well to accomplish things that no small business could ever pull off. But a serious downside tends to be that with the dilution of the individual responsibility of real people (management), and the obsessive focus on bottom-line, these sorts of things inevitably happen. The last several years have made clear that it's not just an American corporate culture problem, it's a world-wide issue. It's unfortunate that some see this as a big "revelation" about foreign corporations. It's a problem that afflicts them all, wherever their HQ flag may be planted.

 

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted By: ekpolk
I would certainly agree that Toyota management has been as guilty as anyone of making judgment calls that have enamored them of nobody. I agree that it is a perennial story of industry. The corporate form of business, especially in large settings, works very well to accomplish things that no small business could ever pull off. But a serious downside tends to be that with the dilution of the individual responsibility of real people (management), and the obsessive focus on bottom-line, these sorts of things inevitably happen. The last several years have made clear that it's not just an American corporate culture problem, it's a world-wide issue. It's unfortunate that some see this as a big "revelation" about foreign corporations. It's a problem that afflicts them all, wherever their HQ flag may be planted.

FULLY AGREED!!

But what actually DOES make it a "revelation" is the American public's taken-for-granted/wearing blinders PERCEPTION of these foreign corporations as perfect, infallible and totally incapable of making these sorts of "bottom line" calls against the best interests of their customers.

 

[ekpolk]

Originally Posted By: dailydriver
...
FULLY AGREED!!

But what actually DOES make it a "revelation" is the American public's taken-for-granted/wearing blinders PERCEPTION of these foreign corporations as perfect, infallible and totally incapable of making these sorts of "bottom line" calls against the best interests of their customers.


At the end of the day, perhaps the only place where we might have real disagreement (maybe) is in your description of the subject class of people as "the American Public". Yes, there are folks out there who will believe that Toyota has never, can never, and will never do any wrong. But don't forget, there are also many people out there who are equally "hard over" about domestics in general, or particular domestic brands. We may well disagree about the size of this population, but I hope we could agree that it's not the whole "American Public". Heck, cousincletus and guys who follow his program (that's not said with any negative implication) are part of the American public, and there are a lot of them too.

For myself (offering this only as an example, not because I think I'm special...), I'm really not "ga ga" over Toyotas. I like the ones we have, and they have worked well for us. Were I in the market for a car today, there are at least a half-dozen domestic products that would be on my list of purchase candidates (and at least as many imports too in all candor). Really.

At the end of the day, everyone is entitled to their opinions and to make their own choices. As my colleague Bill has asked before, let's state our positions as clearly as we can, and respect those of others too.

 

[odie]

we have 2 YARIS that have identical oil leaks from the plastic head gasket on the passenger side of the the block in the back close to the timing chain cover . One is a 2008 sedan with less than 22,000 miles and the other a 2010 3 door with less than 7,000 miles . Started using 5w30 synthetic for both at around 1,200 miles . Not sure if that was the culprit . So drained the synthetic for 2 5w30 conventional oil changes each . Both still leak thus far . Find it peculiar since both are a few years apart with the same issue . Maybe this is something that TOYOTA is withholding as well .

 

[HTSS_TR]

You may not be able to ask for warranty work on the oil leak of 2003 but you should be dealing with Toyota dealer about oil leak of the 2008.

 

[Scienceman]

Originally Posted By: ekpolk
Originally Posted By: Troy_Built
+1 It makes our domestic look great.
I'll stick with my Fords though.


Does it really make "domestic look great"? I find the constant drive to compare interesting. With that in mind, I think it makes Toyota look like they're trying to catch up from their self-induced mess.

How about this comparison: a post-wty Toyota customer with a recall car gets a new set of valve springs, on Toyota's dime. A post-wty GM customer who owns a car with the 60-degree V-6 (e.g. 3.1, 3.4L, etc.) and suffers the all-too-common engine-killing lower intake manifold leak is told, sorry, take a hike, you're wty has expired.

GM has known of this issue for at least a decade, probably longer, and is content to do nothing for its customers.

So, how does the fact that Toyota issues a recall under these circumstances, arguably later than its critics would like, whereas GM stubbornly refuses to recall a know problem for many years, make domestics look better than Toyota?


I will freely admit Ekpolk, insted of arguing with you, that my wording is off. I know GM has problems to as does any auto brand. I should have said I believe that Toyota's problems make FORD look good IMO.
{and c'mom guys don't turn this post into a bashing stampeed of drunked cattle ok}

 

[Scienceman]

Originally Posted By: ekpolk
Originally Posted By: ItsuMitsubishi
Originally Posted By: Troy_Built
Ahhhh Toyota, Toyota, where has your quality gone Toyota?


That went out lockstep with the 80's. It's been a penny pinching, money grubbing horror show ever since


And what on earth does that have to do with the original post???? :


Ekpolk, what it has to do with the thread is I am saying that QUALITY has slipped in a few ways with Toyota. If this is true, (they new about the problem 2 years ago) is that "quality" on there part to do nothing for so long? This goes to show that companies get greedy and tend to skimp on quality and customer care when there demand gets big and the $$$ starts coming in.

 

[Scienceman]

Originally Posted By: ekpolk
I would certainly agree that Toyota management has been as guilty as anyone of making judgment calls that have enamored them of nobody. I agree that it is a perennial story of industry. The corporate form of business, especially in large settings, works very well to accomplish things that no small business could ever pull off. But a serious downside tends to be that with the dilution of the individual responsibility of real people (management), and the obsessive focus on bottom-line, these sorts of things inevitably happen. The last several years have made clear that it's not just an American corporate culture problem, it's a world-wide issue. It's unfortunate that some see this as a big "revelation" about foreign corporations. It's a problem that afflicts them all, wherever their HQ flag may be planted.

I agree, +1

 

[odie]

TOYOTA . Oh , what a feeling !!! It's the exact same feeling you get during a prostate exam

.

 

[brianl703]

I heard they stopped using that slogan because people were associating it with the feeling you get moments before you run to the porcelain throne.