Toyota is back – true or false?
Mar 12, 2010
This is not a tough question. The answer is false. False promises. False advertising. False prospects for the future. False information so people will continue to give Toyota the benefit of the doubt and time to fix the problem. Maybe at first, but not now. Not as problems continue to mount. Still think the majority of consumers believe the load of shit that Toyota is shoveling? Then how do you explain the fact that Toyota was the only major manufacturer last month that suffered a decline? Every other major manufacturer was up for the month of February: GM, Ford, Chrysler, Honda, Nissan, Volkswagen, Mazda, Hyundai, BMW, Subaru, KIA, Jaguar and Porsche. You get the picture: everyone beat Toyota!
Toyota is losing…and losing bad!! Why? Because they were not committed enough to really fix the problem. They were more focused on making it LOOK like they were fixing the problem by showing testimonials of people talking about how much they love the brand and how safe they feel in their Toyota.
Obviously these are not the same people who have become trapped in their runaway Toyotas! Federal officials now report 60 post-recall complaints about unintended acceleration in Toyotas, seven of them over the last few days. Just the other day, a man in California found himself in a terrifying situation when the accelerator of his Toyota Prius became stuck. The man had just taken the car to a local dealership two weeks earlier and was turned away because he was told his car wasn’t on the recall list. He was actually turned away! A state trooper pulled up beside the vehicle and later made a statement that he could smell the brakes burning although the vehicle wasn’t stopping. The Prius reached speeds of up to 94 mph before the trooper was finally able to help bring him safely to a stop. And just yesterday, a housekeeper in NY crashed into a stone wall when her boss’ Prius accelerated out of control. She was on her way to a dealership to have the vehicle’s accelerator checked at the time of the accident. That’s two incidents just this week that we know about!
I called it when I was a guest on FOX Business News last month. And I got a lot of crap for it. People said I was being too harsh on the carmaker. At the time, I said that Toyota should get all recalled vehicles off the road immediately. I said that Toyota should cover all costs associated with righting the situation, including towing, car rental, parts and service – whatever it takes.
If Toyota had taken my advice, the brand might not be in the situation they’re in now – a situation that has only gotten increasingly worse. They would have protected themselves against further liability regarding these recalled vehicles. And more importantly, they would have done the right thing by protecting their customers at all costs and would have earned their continued respect and loyalty.
The problem is far worse than they care to admit. And in their world of lies and falsehoods, that is the only sad truth.
Jordan I agree with what you say in your article- my question to you is would you say the same things if Nissan was going through this.
Cobi,
It is all about the safety of the customer and their families and the honesty of the manufacturer. Toyota had the opportunity to tackle this head on and they blew it and continue to blow it…..
I would hope knowing Nissan the way I do that they would deal with a recall problem in a totally transparent way!!! Either way it is always about honesty and the integrity of the manufacturer. Why do you ask me this question do you work for Toyota??? If you have been following my blog or know my reputation its all about honesty and hitting problems head on with the highest integrity. So yes is the answer!!! I wonder what you would do????
YOU TELL ME……
Mr. Z….It appears you were a bit too quick to pull the trigger. The runaway Prius in California was bogus….and there will be many more to come. I knew it immediately…and yes, it would be wonderful to turn around Toyota’s image and get to the bottom of what is really going on. I was going to contact your office in CA for possible collaboration to take this on, as well as other equally challenging projects. There are many benefits to the instincts of a woman; particularly a professional, creative, driven (no pun intended), talented, focused and success-oriented, no-nonsense woman who lives and breathes and loves advertising….
Mr Zimmerman,
I thoroughly enjoy your website. One of your articles helped me develop an idea for an invention that I am going to pursue. You have great advice and can be very motivating for me sometimes. I have adopted your motto of “you sleep when you die”. I have two questions that I hope you will take the time to answer. 1.) Do you actually sleep only 4 hours a day? Every day? How long have you been doing this? 2.) After doing a Google search on your name, I found out that you are a member on the board of directors for Forbes. Maybe you can answer this question since nobody at Forbes wants to. The January issue listed Monsanto Corp. as company of the year. It’s a no-brainer that Monsanto should not have received company of the year. Their has to be some kind of deal or something that was made. Monsanto is one of the most publicly hated companies in existence. So, why was Monsanto really awarded that honor, and how much if any, did Forbes’ subscription rate drop after January? And by the way, for anyone who likes to pretend that GM crops have or will save humanity from food shortage, Its been proven many times over that conventional non gm crops yield more. Also, Europe, Russia, China, and many other of the worlds highest populated countries do not use GM technology on their crops and have an abundance of food. So much in fact, that they export a lot of it.
Thanks for your question, Joseph. I answer select questions every Wednesday on my blog – stay tuned. In the meantime, keep reading!