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Safety Recalls - Including The Sudden Acceleration Problem -- Scars Toyota's Image

By Brett Emison

USA Today has reported that the Toyota sudden acceleration defect has tarnished the brand's image.

LOS ANGELES — As carefully crafted brand images go, it's hard to beat Toyota's.

Over a generation or so, Toyota (TM) built its reputation — and U.S. market share — on dependability, at a time when General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler couldn't shake being identified with lemons.

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But Detroit's nemesis lately has suffered through its own run of bad press, much of it involving a consumer hot-button: vehicle safety.

The company that once could do no wrong has stumbled badly though a series of embarrassments of disclosures, allegations and recalls. Experts now are debating how deeply these will eat into the consumer trust that is Toyota's most potent asset — and what it must do to recover.

Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, sees real problems. "You have a company whose reputation is built on quality. It's going to do damage to Toyota for the U.S. in the foreseeable future," he says.

I have been chronicling Toyota's many ongoing problems here for months. Toyota denied there was any accelerator problem for more than five years. Even after a documented sudden acceleration crash that killed four people, Toyota continued to make "inaccurate and misleading" statements about its accelerator defect.

Toyota finally (but reluctantly) acknowledged the problem and issued a massive recall of its vehicles. However, many independent safety experts said Toyota's recall did not go far enough. Even Time magazine said Toyota's recall was not sufficient and would not end the sudden acceleration problem. Consumer Reports found that Toyota had far more sudden acceleration events than any other automaker. Sean Kane -- an independent safety expert with Safety Research & Strategies -- has identified more than 2,100 separate Toyota sudden acceleration events.

Toyota's sudden acceleration problem was not Toyota's only issue this year, just the most publicized. Toyota's problems actually ran much deeper. Toyota was forced to recall thousands of its Tundra pickup trucks for corrosion and rust damage. The federal government is investigating another electronic engine control problem that causes Toyota vehicles to stall out -- literally cutting off power to the engine. Toyota is also under investigation for deaths caused by relay rod failures in Toyota pickup trucks.

Perhaps most telling, a former attorney for Toyota dropped off on the steps of a federal courthouse boxes of documents that Toyota had improperly (perhaps illegally) withheld in lawsuits across the country.

This much is indisputable: It's been an awful year for the world's largest automaker.

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"It was the perfect storm," says Jake Fisher, a senior automotive engineer for Consumer Reports about the cascade of safety allegations. "If people are now questioning whether Toyota is going to be safe and reliable, that could really hurt their sales."

I do not pity Toyota. Toyota knew exactly what it was doing when it ignored undisputed problems, when it lied to the public by issuing "inaccurate and misleading" statements about the accelerator problem and when it withheld crash tests from the federal government and from judges in auto defect cases across the country.

Yet despite all of Toyota's misdeeds, what truly frightens me the most is the "who cares" tone of the USA Today article.

Why are we not outraged by Toyota's conduct?

Has corporate malfeasance become so commonplace in America that we are content to sit idly by and let it happen? The author of the USA Today article was not concerned about the loss of life or disabling injuries of innocent victims of Toyota's conduct. The author was not concerned about Toyota lying to federal safety regulators. Not concerned about Toyota lying to its owners and drivers. Not concerned with Toyota hiding documents from lawyers and judges across the country.

The author was concerned about how Toyota would return to profitability.

Quick fact: Toyota is profitable. For the last quarter that Toyota reported results, it earned nearly a quarter billion dollars -- or almost $3 million in pure profit every single day.

To an extent, I understand how corporate group-think and cost-benefit analyses could lead a heartless corporate to put profit of the safety of its own drivers. But why does the public tolerate such conduct?

Do large corporations have a different set of rules than the rest of us? If your reckless conduct -- or my own -- caused injury or death to someone, I am sure you (or I) would be held accountable. Why are these large corporation not held accountable?

It is time for all of us to stand up and make sure that our families and neighbors are safe on American highways.

You can learn more about Toyota's dangerous sudden acceleration defect at our auto safety blog or by visiting our web site.

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Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Brett Emison

Full post as published by Kansas City Personal Injury Lawyer on December 21, 2009 (boomark / email).