unscrejects comments

Moshe Dayan, Golda Muir, Ben Gurion and all the brave souls who used their heads before their feet I miss you... what a bunch of idiots Israel is left with. This Prime Minister is a walking catastrophe...

YuriOtani - Hi! The question you asked, "Could this in the end get Toyota more trouble because of the cover-up than the problem?" Bingo! That's the logic even in Japan. But the unusual problem for Toyota is that they did not only cover it up - they told their dealers that this was a good business opportunity - the customer doesn't know that the parts need to be changed so do it in secret and charge the customer for it. Recommend a service that changes a part saying that it will increase your re-sale value... don't tell them which part you've changed. Also charge minimum labor. Remember that this was all supposed to be Toyota's cost. Now how does Toyota tell the US government we didn't cover-up when the US government knows that Toyota has been importing the parts? The parts related to the PCM are slow-moving parts. This means they are hardly if ever changed on a vehicle. By law when a new vehicle is exported to the US service parts, repair parts and slow-moving parts must be exported too. In the beginning of a new model sale service parts are sent at 60% of total volume shipped or if built in the US the dealers get 60% of the parts for the vehicles they'll be selling. Repair parts (or crash parts) are 19% and at 5% slow moving parts are put into the market - this is just in case there is an unexpected product failure. With me so far? Toyota however was supplying dealers with slow-moving parts for each vehicle in the market! That means there is a product failure and possibly with every car. The problem up to now is the government has not been able to identify exactly what is failing and how. Under the law one can't charge them with a crime until it can be proven. But then the Toyota old boys who see the grandson of their beloved founder treated this way (by those who threw him into the CEO seat to escape the responsibility)... they're going to blow the whistle. Toyota's own people will kill it. This is huge. Alsoo remember the Japanese parts makers who have been charged for these repairs also - yes Toyota also collected money from the parts makers. US customers and Japanese parts makers have been charged yet Toyota continues to deny the problem. How does the Japanese parts maker file his taxes when Toyota will not give him a receipt? Now you see what I'm afraid of? Toyota is no angel.

Midnightpromise: It's daybreak - you can come out of your sleep now. The US made Toyotas are using the same parts that are suffering from the same problems with the Japan built Toyotas. If you'd read your daily paper you'd see that Japan has arrested Toyota service managers for hiding the facts - people have died in Japan because of the same problems. The Corolla steering problem - guess what? It is linked to the immobiliser that self triggers while you're driving - sound familiar. Toyota has known this for years and covered it up - see "Toyota Hi-lux crash 2004 Kumamoto" Oh and to burst your bubble one more time - successive Toyota CEO's have repeatedly confessed that their American workers produce better quality products, have better work ethics and produce more per man hour than the Japanese. And saying this in Nagoya. Would a Japanese worker from Nagoya ever go to the Diet to defend the company - even if told to do so by the company? Hell no.

YuriOtani : your posts are about Japan being superior to the US. This problem with Toyota is not a new issue - please take a moment to see my posts from three years ago. I warned that Toyota was leading Japan to a possible conflict with the US because of criminal business practices. I advised the Japanese ministry of transport in June this year to get the Toyota execs in for a warning. They didn't believe me. I am speaking from experience. My fear is not the US regulators or congress but I fear a Japanese whistle blower. I am so afraid because Japanese workers take company documents home - especially when they're doing bad business practice. The companies have a policy of hiding the papers at the worker's houses. The trouble is the worker realises the value of what he has and he sells it to the media or even to the US for a Green card. A Japanese company under suspicion in the US always loses. There is no way one of their workers will not report - for money.

YuriOtani: I heard the north Koreans believe Kim Jong Il regularly shoots 12 on the front nine - but of coure they've never seen him play and have no idea what golf is. Getting the point? Japan must stop buying US debt? Now doesn't that ring a bell? You've got to understand that when April rolls around you're going to have to think seriously about what the Toyota people will be saying - blaming the guys who have left the company. This is always the outcome when a Japanese company is under the microscpoe - FUSO: for twenty years they bought the police reports that would prove the victim of a broken hub was the cause, they lied about testing the parts - they had no testing facilities(!); Toyota executives where arrested in 2005 for the crime of hiding the defects in the Hi-Lux steering; Koito was in the papers only last week for systematic cheating on airline seat data... look in the mirror before you play partiotic cheer leader.

YuriOtani - The Japanese do not like them etc etc... I worked in a Japanese auto company for 17 years. The company and JAMA were absolutely against any dealer who would even consider a US import. The regulators went out of their way to make sure that the vehicles ever got into the showrooms. Which cars are all the celebs driving? Not Japanese. Honda Civic small car? I had a Honda Civic parked next to a Cadillac to prove to the media that your type of comments are nutty. Guess which was the small car? Go do the test yourself. Why don't pick-up trucks made by Japanese makers get sold in Japan? If they did the US makers would outsell them - so by removing the segment from the market the pickup becomes a special sector which costs more to import. AMerican makers do recalls when something is suspected to be wrong. Japanese makers charge the owner for repair of a different part but change the suspect part secretly. If you've never worked behind the scenes in a Japanese auto company I suggest you avoid this arguement.

The facts are already known - Toyota has a major problem here. Congress is baiting Toyota into fibbing itself into no return. The one problem that Toyota is simply wishing will go away is the service advisory bulletins it has put out to its dealers over the past ten years. To the layman out there - the company would tell the dealers to earn a buck on a fix Toyota was obligated for. That means silently recalling the cars and having the dealers con the owner into paying the cost by claiming an alternative problem. The trouble here however is that evidence suggests quite clearly that Toyota claimed for those repairs from its suppliers. Folks we have a company that professes to be an angel but...

Mr. Toyoda was not made president for any reason but to make him the fall guy. He was set up. This problem took a little longer to come out than I exepected - most people, including Mr. Toyoda, were simply stupid and blind to not realize the crisis. The people who didn't change the product design eight years ago are the ones holding the blame - they're all out of Toyota now. Left poor grand son holding the smoking gun... Toyota lawyers are just as ignorant of the cause so they're saving their careers. They're not dumb enough to say anything to Toyoda - he's virtually on his own. Fair weather friends it turns out the Japanese media have been to Toyota. Where's Rajkumar and the rest of the posters who called me crazy for calling this crisis two years ago? I only got back to JT because the comments I'm reading are so far off the mark... I'll give you all one last hint of a similar technology flaw - Airbus.

Escape is Ford - I was in the company that got the Tribute. What is it with you guys? The project paperwork between the two companies came through my desk everyday for the five years it took them to decide they were going to take it from Ford. Mazda had it literally shoved onto them by Ford. The only input from Mazda was probably the chassis dimensions - they hoped that by demanding a Japanese parking space sized unit Ford would balk and stop the project. Ford didn't. So Mazda made very little effort to sell the car. The Mazda attitude was so bad that only one Mazda person was dispatched to the Kansas factory to oversee production - and he was killed in a car wreck on the eve of mass production start - his replacement suddenly came to me to ask for our project to be cancelled because he'd been told he had to take charge of the Tribute (and he had played no part in it at all). Worse is that Mazda people went out of their way to 'misunderstand' the build order requests -the Tribute had the worst built errors in the US. The replacement guy in Kansas often griped to me that the Hiroshima guys were sending the wrong data to Ford though the requests from Ford were written by him in Japanese. Customer options were either intentionally misunderstood or ignored... The product concept was Ford's. Vehicle designed by Ford. Powered by Ford. SHould I go on?

Ford Escape was not designed by Mazda. It's a Ford - and built by Ford. Mazda got a decontented version hence nobody wanted it. The Escape is better.

Smith: La Hood is absolutely spot on! Pity he is being conned into rewording himself.

correction: "plus in aviation."

Nandakandamanda: The problem is well known in the industry plue in aviation. Airbus anyone? I will hint no further but for the right fee I can give anybody the full scoop.

Tahoochi - You're welcome. And, hate to flog a dead horse but Toyota have behaved as if the people in the US have no idea what the Toyota execs (Japanese that is) say when out of American ear shot. Claims are repeatedly made to district service managers - locals, who then feed the claims to Japanese minders. The minders have US work visas that list their jobs as field quality assurance engineers - ie they're supposed to convey the English claim to the home office in Japanese - the home office/Nagoya, is then supposed to devise a remedy a.s.a.p. - in liaison with the US regulators... The problem is those QA engineers are completely unable to explain the meaning of what was reported to them by US district service engineers. I have enough inside experience to have called this crisis more than five years ago. With no field service report from the J-QA to the US regulators, the regulators start to get a little annoyed especially since there is never a hint of rectifying the problem of zero communication with home... As I noted somewhere earlier, Toyota have raised safety issues with regulators regarding US makers products! Now that don't rub well with the same regulators who keep asking, "Is your feedback from Nagoya here yet?" Add to that the J-press' regular gloating about how Toyota is kicking the pants off the US makers in cost effeciency... we have the makings of a ticking pyrotechnique. Trust me sir but I stopped posting for the last two years on this forum because nobody believed what I said about this Toyota problem. If you see their reported costs for the year you'll note a huge budget for such recalls yet they never did them.

The industry - a recall is ordered for safety related defects regardless of ability to fix. And it is not at manufacturer's discretion. Toyota as I have repeatidly pointed out on this site (going back as far as 2005 - even posting as 111774) was hiding safety related claims. They've saved themselves billions while the big three were being hammered by claims Toyota people made. Talk about sinister... Folks remember that Toyota execs were arrested for covering up this particular fault in Japan in 2005?

I stand vindicated!

cow: Or someone is pushing the stock up.

Selective attention to detail. The press sucks in this story. She was freed because of one thing only- JAPAN! The Japanese minister of foreign affairs personally did the talking for her. Iran needs Japan.

Hubble would have been proud. This telescope is the best product made in the US in a long time - it sat in Ball's warehouse for ten years before it was launched and despite a few adjustments here and there to keep up with the times and needs of NASA, the lady has been kicking full steam ever since. I remember how they said it would never work.

The cars on a boat arguement doesn't float - the J-auto makers only build vehicles that are ordered and paid for by non-revokeable letter of credit. No J-car maker sends vehicles to any market - domestic included, that are not paid for before they're built. In other words all vehicles leaving the factory have been sold! The dealer sitting with cars that are not selling on his lot is on his own. Toyota has no connection to those cars. Toyota has operated this way for the past two decades and has laughed at the US makers for providing their dealers with vehicles to sell on the manufacturers behalf. As far as Toyota has seen it, the distributor must buy in full from the maker before the dealer gets a single unit. The arrangement between the dealer and distributor is of no concern to Toyota. So the views being expressed by the press are simply mind boggling.

I am not surprised that there are no comments on this article - saying I was gullable is not an easy thing. For a while now I have called the Toyota balance sheet a major concern. The one thing that has Toyota in serious trouble is the cost cutting MO. The cat was let out of the bag two years ago. Surprised though that the world hasn't picked it up yet - the pension debacle. For the past few years the auto industry had been switching workers (without the workers knowledge) from full time to part time. The payroll savings accounted for a large share of the sudden profits the industry began to make. They didn't stop there, they also started to double book CKDs. But then came the US slowdown. It's too scary to go on. I certainly believe that the Hitachi losses are nothing compared to what Toyota is eventually going to declare.

It's starting to embarrass the establishment. How much more can they keep fudging the losses? First it was 4%, then 8. Now they're saying 20%. When did they lose those sales since their other figures were issued at the end of the final quarter? Unless the chickens I've been clucking about are coming home to roost. I'd rather be GM than Toyota at the moment.

elbudamexicano: hope your family are doing okay. I know I tease you alot on this site but this is no laughing matter - I have so many Mexican friends (long distance runners in particular). I know your country very well too so I feel as concerned about the effect of this illness as you, not only on the people but also on the economy and global relations. The key challenge is to fight the sin that has got this blamed on Mexico in the first place. WHO knows somthing they're not letting us onto, like about the pigs shipped into the country by major pig farming operators who tell Mexico to play it by their rules or lose the export pork market - inlcude avocado, mango etc. As some reports are already hinting, the flu has dna that shows a number of countries are involved.

Some friend of the US this... did you see all the Toyota pick-ups their army is using? You'd expected uncle Dick to pull a little string for Chrysler. And pleeeze let's not involve Russia. The president of Georgia is such a dysfunctional character the only reason he's still president is because the country hasn't yet figured out who will replace him.

Day 1 on the job: Ben, feed the monkey. Day 2: Ben, take the monkey's temperature. Day 3: Ben, get the monkey more power for his laptop. Day 4: Ben, proof read the monkey's blog....

It's as comfortable as a "Masochist's Retreat". Narita is the worst airport I've ever been through.

Wasn't this the perfect company only last month? Western airlines need to learn from JAL they said on this very site.

elbuda: Yes siree bob, Cuba has oil reserves. Trust me: I'm an API (American Petroleum Institute) school grad. Only as recently as twelve months ago Cuba's off-shore oil deposits were calculated (by the international oil people) to be greater than the Mexican off-shore deposits. Cuba is incredibly beckoning for the Texans!

Amazing how people can say he is endangering the CIA. That's an oxymoron. This outfit lied the country into a nasty war. How many Americans died for the CIA'S lies?

Smythe: I'm an expert in the industry. You'ved said it in a nutshell. People tend to mistake Design for Style. And some folks here are actually wondering why bother doing research at all... I once recommended that a major auto maker in western Japan repalce all dial and gauge faces with boat instrument faces. Familiar with them? The company almost did it but balked at the last minute. And they regretted all the way from the bank when disaster struck a month after the new model had debuted. 2000 customers (all over 50) returned their cars. Driving into the sun they couldn't make out a single dial face. In poor light the red digital icons seemed to multiply. In short sir the car was a right royal flop. The design engineers came sprinting to my desk asking for a quick but permanent fix. The bucket seat they'd blasted as unnecessary for the over 55 drivers was retro-actively installed into every vehicle. Apparantly what I had known from Florida research was that bucket seats offered the best driving support for aging drivers with back troubles. I really hope that the manufacturers will start to rethink the reason why they build cars. Please continue to enjoy your driving and riding.