'You asked for it, you got it, Toyota'

2/9/2011 1:18 PM EST

How many times must we see examples where the poor or delayed handling of the "crisis" causes more damage than the actual "crisis" before companies learn that an aggressive approach to listening to consumers and hunting down problems is not only the most moral, but also to most profitable approach?

I've been on the inside of companies that have had field problems with products before. It's easy enough to ignore early reports of failures. But it's nearly as easy to put someone on the reports. You get on the phone with the customer or go to the customer's location, whichever is most appropriate, and listen and listen.

I can't think of any example of damaging press cause by a company investigating potential problems early on. It's far more likely to cause a very favorable press and public reaction.

2/9/2011 6:49 PM EST

Well I have to say if Toyota would have been at fault it wouldn't have surprised me, I have a late model Toyota Aurion and the number of stupid engineering flaws in it boggle the mind. Only one of them is potentially dangerous, but all are annoying. It leaves the impression that they are more interested in checking boxes that actually engineering designs.

2/10/2011 10:24 PM EST

Toyota should use this as opportunity in their marketing and advertising. This is a good chance for them to recapture their lost market. May be soon again it will become World's No 1 car maker.
Our best wishes to Toyota.

2/10/2011 11:47 PM EST

I have also not heard great things about Toyota in automobile. But if there is any fault the best thing is to accept it and come out with strategy how it will not be repeated. Customers always trusts one who is honest and who has a strong action plan.

2/15/2011 8:49 AM EST

I don't think Toyoda should be completely off the hook. Having read the report and sat in on part of a conference call with one of the NASA personnel, there are still some unresolved questions. For example, the tin whisker short could cause the short term sudden acceleration, but it only takes 2 seperate faults to override the fail-safe. Finding the tin whiskers highlights a problem with lead-free electronics. As shown in the report, it does not take much current to vaporize a whisker, destroying the evidence. There was not enough parts (good and bad) examined for a statistical sample. The result leaves a sense of lack of closure on my part. I suspect there may be some "Monday-morning-quarterbacking" of the NESC/NHTSA approach.

2/15/2011 9:56 AM EST

The "examined more than 280k lines of code" doesn't convince me that there is no bug, but that's not the problem. Toyota should expect defects (possible cultural problem there) and be able to log and report them. A $1 (or $0.5) SPI flash can be their little black box. Customer has a problem? The dealer e-mails the data file to the factory and the engineers can see that the customer really isn't crazy.

2/15/2011 12:34 PM EST

What disturbed me about the Toyota response was the certainty with which they expressed their point of view---that it could, categorically, NOT possibly be anything beyond floor mats and user error (and finally a problem with the potentiometer return spring etc.). It sounded arrogant then, and in light of their cynical coverup of these problems, and assessment and self-congratulation of how the early issues were handled, very very interesting. That is, how were they so sure? Well, let's try this one on for size: they had already quietly and extensively investigated the firmware and electronic hardware, perhaps?


The overall situation with the company is indeed tragic. At one time their quality-oriented culture was nonpareil. A client who tried to get their business was intensely tested and scrutinized, and the talk-the-talk but hide-the- data QA head was unable to pull off his usual deceptions---the visitors from Japan would walk around right on the factory floor and talk to the workers and uncover unpleasant and inconvenient truths. And even to get to this stage took years of someone living in Japan and eventually being accepted by the locals, an amazing effort.


Will they ever really recover? I don't know. The attitude and arrogance is going to be remembered for a good long time to come, and no amount of TV ads about technology sharing etc. will cut it for many of us. For the most part the stuff they make is as good as anyone's---although it's not just problems with Camry and Lexus: a friend's early Prius recently lost its brakes completely---in traffic. It had given years of faithful service, and he was about to sell it and get a new one. When he managed to stop the car and get it towed to the dealership, they checked it out and said Well, we will replace the following ten parts and see if that fixes it (!!!). Not exactly reassuring is it?

2/15/2011 1:05 PM EST

Perhaps the opening statement here is a bit misleading. The NASA team did not exonerate the code. They merely stated that after applying a number of widely-used tools and doing a lot of modeling, they were unable to find a fault that they could conclusively connect to unintended acceleration in a 2005 4-cylinder Camry. Their analysis did in fact find problems in the code. But the team was unable to describe a scenario in which these faults could cause the problem. And much of their model-based methodology was based on assumptions about possible failure mechanisms. So as the team itself said, their work does not prove that such faults could not happen: only that they couldn't find them.
ron

2/15/2011 8:20 PM EST

I just read mjb's comment, does anybody share my view that lead free electronics is a disaster waiting to happen? One of my concerns is the environmental cost of almost double the energy requirement of leaded. Also the dramatic increase in waste because service is so much more difficult. This is on top of the reliability issues.

2/16/2011 5:34 AM EST

Reading the comments I get the impression that the general view is that "We don't care what the findings are we're still going to blame the software". Look at it this way. If it was the software then Toyota wasted money on fixing accelerator pedals and cars would still be crashing. Where are the reports? Surely it would be big news? As far as I'm aware, it was only in the states that problems were reported. The software was the same around the world but the American models were fitted with accelerator pedals made in an American factory. To keep banging on about the software in the face of the evidence smacks of conspiracy theory, but then the States is very good at creating them!

2/16/2011 6:56 PM EST

Knowing some lawyers involved in the litigation of the Toyota cases, I asked them what they thought. I got raised eyebrows and general comments that yes, there are real problems that are not on the public record, and there have been substatial payouts to custoemers cover them up. Whether those were mechanical or electonic problems was not clear, but I don't think we reall have the whole story yet.
Any yes, I thing lead free is a disaster in anything that needs to be reliable. That is why the military, among others, have an exemption.

2/27/2011 11:31 AM EST

Many things in cars are electronically controlled. Like the acceleration to economise the fuel,the power steering and airconditioner. After reading this article suppose all of a sudden if the power steering goes out of control what will happen to those in the roads?

3/31/2011 1:41 PM EDT

I still have doubts that all possible issues were expolred to the point of exhaustion, and remove all concerns from all victims and other interested parties. I have not read of any experiments to explore radiation, ESD or ther EMC events. Does any one have that kind of detail or links to additional research?