Toyota: Is It Just Another Brand Name?

 Is “Toyota” a victim of “Name Brand” selling?

I would imagine by now the whole world has heard that the biggest car manufacturer in the world “Toyota” has had two safety issues on two of their vehicles in the same month!  A problem with the “Pirus” a hybrid eco vehicle and several other models across the range as well! 

The Toyots Pirus

The “Pirus” has a braking software problem and other Toyota models have a problem with sticking accelerator pedals, a good job both faults are not on the same models!  Imagine a car with an accelerator that sticks and brakes that do not work?  It doesn’t bear thinking about.

This article however is not about criticising Toyota far from it.  I have mentioned before in my articles that I am a qualified Vehicle Technician and I was also a Service Manager in main agent garages.  I will try to explain the way a “Manufacturers Safety Recall” is implemented.

During the 1980s and 1990s I worked for “Volvo” in their main dealer outlets in London.  I also attended their U.K. training centre in Daventry many times.  To give a relevant example of a Safety recall I’ll go back to 1984.  The Volvo 760 saloon was launched to great acclaim across the world, it was sleek American sedan looking Volvo.  A great improvement on their box shaped classic Volvo estates.

One morning the service manager gathered all the vehicle technicians together and told us the new acclaimed Volvo 760 has two safety recalls, one problem was a leaking “Brake reduction valve” this valve balances the braking system under heavy braking and the valve was leaking brake fluid!  Unchecked the vehicle could run out of brakes all together.

The Volvo 760.

The second safety recall on the same vehicle referred to the driver and passenger front windows or “Drop Glasses” as the trade refers to them.  The problem with the drop glasses was at over 70mph if you wound down either front windows the glass would either shatter or be pulled out of the aperture and shatter on the road!

All technicians were issued with “S” bulletins S for safety, we had to read them and sign to the effect we had read them and were capable of carrying out the remedial repairs.  The manufacturer “Volvo” would write to all the affected vehicles and ask them to make an appointment at their local Volvo main dealer and have the safety recalls carried out free of charge of course.

The problem begins with a small proportion of customers may only keep their vehicles for a year or a few months then sell them on, which makes notifying the new customer very difficult.  That is the stage that the “D.V.L.A.” (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority) is contacted and asked for the address for the new owners.

Unless you owned a Volvo 760 the chances are you would never of heard of this problem.  In the 1980s or 1990s the media was of course huge but safety recalls to my knowledge never made headline news. Today we have “Twitter”  and  “Facebook” just to name a few social networking sites so news especially bad news travels fast!

There is another reason why this particular article has made such a high profile, that is Toyota have traded on their reputation of fantastic reliability and build quality.  Also the Japanese nation themselves have a reputation for excellent engineering.  On a personal level I owned a Toyota Supra Turbo for a short while and I found the vehicle excellent in almost every respect.

Toyota are not the only high spec manufacturer to have safety and build quality issues.  If anyone is reading this article that owns a Mercedes they will know exactly what I am talking about.  Mercedes the pillar of build quality and German excellence? Not anymore, in a recent survey my humble working man’s Ford Mondeo beat Mercedes easily in build quality and reliability.

Audi and VW have had a punishing time in the last ten years with abysmal build quality.  I worked for an independent third party warranty company that sold warranties to all manufacturers.  It gave me a unique insight into the build quality of all motor manufacturers.

I will let you into a trade secret I cannot think of one manufacturer who makes their own product 100% anymore.  Most Mercedes are built in Brazil to save on labour costs!  They admit privately to people in the trade like me that they have a serious quality problem and they are desperate to fix it.

Anyone like the X-Type Jaguar? Nice looking for sure, did you know your driving a working class Ford Mondeo? No well you are.  All the running gear on early X-Type Jaguar’s were taken straight from the Ford production line and the body shell of the X-Type was dropped on top of a Mondeo Ghia.  In fact at the very early press release for the X-Type the bonnet remained closed as “Ford” was stamped on the top of the engine!

Now surly a “Bentley” is the best? Well if you like VW then yes.  One of the cheaper “Bentley’s” is nothing but a “VW Phaeton”  If you are surprised and do not believe me the Google it.  This crazy situation has arisen due to manufacturing costs and the profit margin the manufacturers want to make. 

The VW Bentley!

My Ford Mondeo is an American owned company so is my car made in America or the U.K.? well Spain actually!  There are language barriers to overcome and working standards to think of. 

Take my old bosses franchise Volvo they are basically a mixture of Mitsubishi and Renault parts assembled in a third world country.  Its not just car manufacturers that  are solely trading on their reputation that has long since gone.  After 21 years of faithful service my “J.V.C.” television was on its last legs.  I decided to replace it with another J.V.C. as the reliability was outstanding being made in Japan.

My Japanese Birmingham bulit Televison!

I brought the T.V. and unwrapped it like a school boy and on the back was stamped “Made in Birmingham U.K.” I was very disappointed, will this T.V. last 21 years I doubt it very much.

So please remember the world of manufacturing changed some time ago.  Please go for the best product for your money try to forget the “Brand Names” you grew up with and relied on chances are they are made in a sweat shop in the jungle somewhere.  Check the product out on the internet and find out where they are manufactured.  Please don’t pay over the odds for brand names.

Brand names can be brought by anyone when a company goes bankrupt you may not be getting anything like the quality you are paying for.  If you’re the type of person that like brand names and wants to pay through the nose for them that great.

Lord Banks