ZeMink Dot Com

The biggest car manufacturer in the world has made a massive recall of several of their models in an effort to prevent accidents linked to faulty accelerator pedals. 

The massive recall Toyota announced came on Tuesday 26th of January as some Toyota brand cars already sold that equals up to 2.3 million have been revealed to uncontrollably accelerate with no warning because of defective gas pedal parts.

Listed below are the car models being recalled by Toyota:

Corolla (2009-2010)
RAV4 (2009-2010)
Matrix (2009-2010)
Avalon (2005-2010)
Camry (2007-2010)
Highlander (2010)
Tundra (2007-2010)
Sequoia (2008-2010)

The same gas pedal problem was not found on certain Camry models like the Camry Hybrid.  Unlisted Toyota models like the Yaris, Land Cruiser, Tacoma, Prius, etc. have also passed quality inspection.

Because of this, Toyota has decided to put on hold the manufacture of these specific models on six assembly plants throughout North America. 

This has costed Toyota Motors Corp. both significant profit loss and their reputation as a reliable car manufacturer.  In terms of sale, Toyota has sold more cars than any other car company in the world, giving them the number one spot.  After this incident, however, the future of Toyota seems bleak and it needs to redeem itself if it wants to regain the market’s trust again.

Toyota’s European market can also encounter a same recall given that several parts of the gas pedals that are used in North America are also used on some Toyota models in Europe.  It is said that only one supplier from the US manufactures the defective gas pedal part.

The recall is also being linked to the previous event with regard to the auto giant that took place in Japan in 2006.  The incident involved the Japanese government conducting a criminal investigation on Toyota due to several accidents that took place and were traced to manufacturing problems.  Charges were never filed against any of Toyota’s executives and workers but this incident has come back to haunt the company in a certain way.

Following the recall, Toyota’s shares fell 4.3 percent.
The sales forecast Toyota earlier announced has been estimated to exceed more than 2 million cars in US and Canada and above 8 million car sales worldwide for 2010.  Due to this recent embarrassment, however, a lot are doubting that Toyota would meet that target.

The quality control problem Toyota’s presently having is also being blamed on the growth plan of Katsuaki Watanabe, the company’s previous president.  Part of his growth stategy involved increased and fast production which is said to have contributed to poor quality control.  In 2009, Watanabe was succeeded by the grandson of Toyota’s founder, Akio Toyoda.

Numerous safety firms have reported that more than 2,000 incidents of sudden acceleration involving cars made by Toyota and at least six casualties were also reported. 

It is still unclear how much impact this would bring Toyota but the important thing for it is to bring in the right changes to its manufacturing and quality-control processes as soon as possible.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 7th, 2010 at 2:54 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.