Nice New Toyotas

As I have been learning all of the wonderful tools and innovation that Toyota brought to manufacturing I am astounded to say the least. And up until now their quality was unsurpassed. What happened? I was reading an article from the Harvard Business Review by Sean Silverthorne on this very subject. Apparently, a significant contributor to this accelerator problem was Toyota leadership abandoned their quality driven system for increased market share. This wonderful thing called capitalism comes with an underlying price – manufacturer responsibility to the consumer’s safety. Toyota let themselves be lured by increasing market share instead of their customer first ideals. I wonder if the leadership seriously considering the long term consequences of this direction.

“The flush of catching up to Ford and General Motors, coupled with a boom in demand, led Toyota’s leaders to put sales growth above quality. Senior leaders became focused on becoming first in sales with a 15% share of global sales. This meant that new products had to be introduced more quickly, new plants had to be opened more rapidly, and supply networks had to be expanded more aggressively. We’re now seeing the consequences of those decisions.” – Learning from Toyota’s Stumble by Steven Spear

Another automaker that lost its credibility was Audi. “Volkswagen AG’s Audi luxury brand spent 15 years rebuilding U.S. sales after sudden-acceleration incidents in the 1980s almost wiped out demand, a possible sign of the difficult times Toyota Motor Corp. faces. Audi’s U.S. deliveries plunged 83 percent by 1991 from their peak in 1985 following recalls of the German automaker’s 5000 sedan. A class-action lawsuit in 1987 by Audi owners seeking compensation is still being fought.” Audi 1980s Scare May Mean Lost Generation for Toyota by Andreas Cremer and Tom Lavell.

Toyota was the industry example of how to run a manufacturing business at optimum performance. When they upheld Lean principles of the customer first in on all levels of their processes it was reflected in the quality of their product. Not just in production, but design and marketing. This Lean philosophy was translated into profit, brand loyalty and an impeccable reputation. They were truly a lean enterprise. I fear that they have now become just another automaker. Toyota is reexamining what made them great. However, it will still take years to recover from the brand damage now done.

Toyota is a clear example of what not to do when you have a successful business model. All companies can be what Toyota was and hopefully will become again. Before this recall Toyota had 15% of the global market. Amazing. On a local level, think of what is would be like to increase your market share just by doing things Lean. If you were able to set up best practices, reduce or eliminate mistakes, full utilization of staff, etc. how would that help you become an industry leader? The question to ask yourself is am I the Toyota of yesterday or the Toyota of today? This applies for service business too. Which one are you?

Cynthia Marsh-Croll

The Toyota Motor Corporation is the largest car manufacturer in the world, but they didn’t get there by building cars of an inferior quality. Toyotas have long been considered the benchmark by which all other makes are judged, but in recent months that advantage has largely disappeared.

Toyota’s problems are being blamed on a number of factors including a relentless quest to displace General Motors as the world’s largest car company, management infighting where Toyoda family members battled to regain control of the company and a management disconnect between what takes place in Japan and elsewhere in the world.

But I’m not writing about these problems specifically. Rather, what must Toyota do to regain the customer’s trust in their products?

As an automotive writer who attends auto shows, meets with industry leaders and keeps his pulse on what customers are thinking about through my Auto Trends website, I can offer the following suggestions on how Toyota can win back customers and put its present crises behind it:

Come clean. It isn’t enough for Akio Toyoda to offer one thousand apologies for Toyota’s screw ups. While having the chairman of the company take responsibility is laudable, ‘fessing up can go much further. Specifically, Toyota has to admit where it went wrong even at the risk of huge lawsuits. Toyota will end up paying hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and legal settlements, but they’ll also save themselves billions in lost sales.

Shake up. Toyota is much too concentrated in Japan. The entire board consists of paternal, Japanese executives who understand the home market but are out of touch with what goes on in the rest of the world. Google the name Jim Press and see what he has to say about Toyota management. You’ll learn that the company is great at selling vehicles, but not at identifying problems quickly. Someone needs to shake up the way the company is managed and run.

Get real. Toyota has a perceived culture of not being transparent and some have gone on record as saying that the company covers up it problems. An AP investigative report accused Toyota of this much, something Toyota has to counter. They can do that by always letting customers know what is going on and avoid posturing. If you’re believable, customers will trust you. If not, good-bye.

If Toyota continues to be defensive, even combative, people will see through it and look elsewhere for their new cars. Volkswagen and a resurgent General Motors are closing back in while Ford, Honda and Hyundai are demonstrating that their vehicles are certainly worth a look.

Matthew C. Keegan

TOYOTA PRIUS BATTERY COST

The Toyota Prius is a mid sized car that is completely hybrid electric. It has been developed by the Toyota Motor Company. The Prius is believed to be one of the most fuel efficient cars sold in the US as per the United states Environment Protection Agency.

The main problem many customers our having with the Prius is related to the battery life. In a lot of cases the Prius batteries are only lasting 150,000 miles or only between 8 – 10 years. The Toyota Prius is a great car, but if you are ever in need of the batteries to be replaced, you have a big problem. Let us give you your options and provide you with some help.

When you are not in the warranty period then you will have to pay a high price for your hybrid batteries. Some used Prius battery packs are offered on websites which will cost around a $1000. However, this can be risky. You should be looking for other dealers that can give you high quality hybrid batteries at a good price. This can be hard to find because a lot of dealers are still charging outrageous prices for new hybrid batteries.

The Toyota Prius battery cost has come down recently. Earlier they were priced at around $3000. When you look around you will be able to find them for approximately $2300. These quoted prices of the Toyota Prius battery cost are outrageous and are not affordable for the typical Prius owner.

Another quick and cheaper option to reduce your Toyota Prius battery cost is to buy a rebuilt battery from other dealers other than Toyota. This will save both your time and money. You can even find lots of people who are ready to sell Toyota Prius rebuilt batteries online. This is still a little risky but a lot cheaper than paying your money to Toyota to fix what should of never broke in the first place.

I myself decided to use the lowest cost option. I have found a guide online which you can use for rebuilding your battery yourself. I didn’t want to rebuild the battery myself at first so I talked to my local mechanic shop and they said if I give them the guide they will look it ocher and rebuild the battery for me at shop rates.

I could not justify giving Toyota my hard earned money so I did some research and discovered this excellent guide. The guide was not expensive and it saved me a ton of money and hassle. I was back on the road for under $500 and had plenty of money in my pocket and not Toyotas.

About the Author:

Stephen is the owner of a Toyota Prius and has used this guide to fix his own Prius. Discover the way I did to save thousands on your Toyota Prius battery cost. Use this guide to fix the battery yourself or give it to your local mechanic and have them fix it for you. Either way you will save a lot of money to have your Prius back on the road.

Toyota Motor Corporation’s product liability for unintended acceleration and braking problems, which has reportedly led to 10 million recalls and counting, would eventually be found to be manufacturing and/or design safety defects.

From the reported accounts of several accidents involving sudden acceleration and brake failure, the safety defects may, hopefully for Toyota, be limited to accelerator-pedal trapping floor mats, sticking accelerator pedals, and inconsistent anti-lock brake systems (ABS), and not include defective electronic throttle control systems (ETCS) or stirring systems, on Corollas, Camrys, and other Toyota models.

Toyota’s global recalls have included Prius and Lexus hybrids, which indicate that the safety defects related to unintended acceleration and braking problems are systemic in nature.

Indeed, Toyota dealers nationwide have reportedly begun fixing accelerator pedals on recalled vehicles by installing a precision-cut reinforcement bar into the accelerator pedal assembly to eliminate the excess friction that has caused pedals to stick on occasions.

Dealers will also place reconfigured accelerator pedals and newly-designed floor mats on affected models to remedy floor mat pedal entrapment, and remedy the inconsistent brake feel of the anti-lock system (ABS) in 2010 Prious.

Moreover, Toyota will install a brake override system that cuts the engine on simultaneous application of accelerator and brake pedals. Even as Toyota is implementing the brake override system, it asserts that it “is confident that no defect exists in the electronic control unit (ECU).”

Manufacturing Versus Design Defects:

A. Manufacturing Defects:

The manufacturing process of a product consists of the formation, assembly, adjustment, combination, or processing of raw materials or ingredients according to the product design, per CCH, I Products Liability Reporter, Section 4785.
Thus, manufacturing defects may arise from improper formation, faulty assembly or adjustment, incorrect composition, or defective raw materials or component parts.

Toyota has identified the manufacturing defect that causes sticking accelerators as the: “friction device that includes a ’shoe’ that rubs against an adjoining surface during normal pedal operation. Due to the “materials used, wear and environmental conditions,” these surfaces may begin to stick…. In some cases, friction could increase to a point… that the pedal sticks, leaving the throttle potentially open.”

In one of the early Firestone cases filed by this Author in August 1999, with the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, the left rear tire of the injured family’s Ford Explorer, a 1994 Firestone Radial ATX, had its tread along with one steel ply coming off completely all the way around the tire.

It caused the 1995 Ford Explorer running at 65 miles per hour on US 101 Freeway in Solvang County, Santa Barbara, California to run out of control and overturn, injuring a couple and their two minor daughters in a nonfatal accident in August 1998.

Bridgestone/Firestone Inc., settled before trial based on the expert report of Transamerican Consultant Engineers, Inc., obtained by this Author, which concluded that: “(T)he cause of the tread separation was due to a poor bond between the steel plies due to failure of the brass plating on the wires to completely fuse with the sulfur in the rubber during the vulcanizing process.”

That case exemplified the manufacturing defect of incorrect composition or defective bonding materials.

B. Design Defects:

The designing of a product consists of the selection of materials and their intended construction as to size, shape, inclusion, and arrangement of component parts, per CCH, I Products Liability Reporter, Section 4745.

Thus, defects in design may take the forms of inadequacies in the plans or specifications, in the choice of materials for the product composition, or in the absence of safety devices or features.

Toyota’s installation of a precision-cut reinforcement bar into the accelerator pedal assembly is a design safety device to remedy sudden acceleration. And its reconfiguration of the shape of the accelerator pedal and newly-designed floor mats are likewise design remedies to avoid floor mat pedal entrapment. Moreover, the installation of a brake override system is another design safety feature.

The placement of fuel tanks close to the rear bumpers in Ford’s Pintos in the 1970’s, which in a 1978 case in Orange County, California, caused the gas tank to explode in a rear-end collision, exemplified the design defect of inadequate plans or specifications.

Defective vehicle design was also at issue in the January 2002 roll-overs of a 1997 Ford Explorer SUV, which left a mother of two paralyzed from the waist down when the Explorer’s roof caved in.

The San Diego jury found that Ford knew that the Explorer had design defects that increased its propensity to tip over, as well as its inadequate roof strength. The U.S. Supreme Court let stand the $82.6 million award to the paralyzed California women, which included $55 million in punitive damages.

Conclusion:

A vehicle recall is an admission of a defect or defects, whether manufacturing or design or both. Hopefully, the recall of Toyota vehicles would cure the defects. And Toyota would be liable only for the reduction in value and loss of use of the vehicle while being fixed. Otherwise, it may be liable also for punitive damages if it knew the defects all along.

For accident cases resulting in bodily injuries or deaths for sudden acceleration and failure of the brakes, the plaintiffs need to prove by a preponderance of the evidence either manufacturing or design or both defects through reconstruction and automotive experts.

Toyota Motor Corporation through their own experts will need to prove lack of defects or lack of causation for the injuries or death, that is, the loss of control of the Toyota vehicle was due to driver error. The jury and the appeal courts in case of appeals from the jury award or defense verdict will decide the outcome.

Our adversarial system of deciding legal disputes in courts would hopefully do justice to whom it is due.

(The Author, Roman P. Mosqueda, is the holder of a 1979 Doctor of Science of Law (S.J.D.) degree from The University of Michigan Law School, with a published doctoral dissertation on comparative product liability. He practices product liability, among other areas of law, in Southern California, based in Los Angeles.

For comments please email to rpm_law@yahoo.com or call his office at (213) 252-9481. Please feel free to visit http://www.mosquedalaw.com to know more about the Author’s practice.

This article is not meant to give legal advice, but is for information only. The reader with specific product liability issues is well-advised to seek the services of a competent product liability attorney.)

Atty Roman P. Mosqueda

For almost 20 years various manufacturers made the Toyota motor home in several models. During its heyday, this little camper was produced in over 60 different models and styles of motor homes.

Beginning with the rather small Toyota Chinook camper and carrying on through the largest of the Toyota based Winnebago and Itasca models, the Toyota based motor home help to establish many manufacturers in the RV industry.

Because of the large number of manufacturers it is not uncommon to see similar campers and very different names. The small overall size had to limit the variety of floor plans available. This caused a lot of the manufacturers to build virtual duplicates that varied only in some of the fit and finish type of details.

It wasn’t long until the manufacturers began to expand the size of the camper bodies. Using conventional manufacturing techniques found in the travel trailer industry, the stick and staple type of construction with aluminum siding became the standard.

In the decade of the 1980s production of the Toyota motor home peaked. Many different companies were producing many different models. Some of the larger companies that were in this business were national RV, the producers of the very popular Dolphin series. They also produced the Seabreeze models. At the same time Winnebago was producing the Brave, the Warrior, and the deluxe Itasca Spirit models.

Damen Corporation of Elkhart Indiana produce the Escaper motor home, while Coachman produced the popular Coachman and Savanna models. Leisure Odyssey was building the Americana, Santa Cruz, and the Laguna campers.

The Mini-Mirage was built by Mirage industries, while the still very popular SunRader was constructed with a fiberglass body by Gardener Pacific.

By the late 1980s the length of the camper body had expanded to 22 feet. This caused a severe overload problem on the original half ton pickup axle. A national safety recall was issued by the United States government to correct the problem. Most of the models were given a new one ton axle. However there are still a few units available today that have the unsafe axle. Caution is advised if you are looking at in 1980s version of this very popular camper.

In 1989 V6 appeared on the market in the Toyota chassis. This increased horse power became very popular with the camper owners and production continued until 1994 when Toyota stopped supplying the pickup chassis to the camper manufacturers for safety reasons. Winnebago produced some of the last V6 versions in 1994.

During its production lifetime, the Toyota motor home enjoyed a great popular success and was widely distributed across the country. Today the greatest number of units on the road seem to be concentrated on the east and west coast areas but these motor homes will turn up just about anywhere in the country.

Having lived and traveled in a Toyota Motor Home, I have fond memories of this type of RV. Discover more about the little RV at http://www.thorntonnetsales.com/toyotamotorhome.

Lee McPherron is a long time RV user, now enjoying life in a 27 foot fifth wheel full time. He is a research writer who writes on a variety of subjects. Associate links provided could possibly result in compensation.

About 1980 RV manufacturers took notice of the success of the little Toyota Chinook motor home. They began to create their own versions that included better facilities for living on the road.

The typical 18 foot Toyota motorhome had more to offer than the previous models. It featured an overhead sleeping area above the cab. This was about the size of a standard double bed and would sleep two people comfortably. This left the main area of the camper open.

Usually this model of Toyota camper located the galley at the rear of the living area. This galley or kitchen would include a 3 cubic foot refrigerator, a three burner stove with oven, a sink with a water storage tank and electric pump, and overhead cabinets for storage of food items and cooking equipment.

In the right rear corner of the camper was a bathroom, complete with shower. This tiny bathroom was fully functional and usually not more than about 2 feet square. An RV toilet, and small fold up sink completed the facilities. The floor of the bathroom was also the floor of the shower with the drain located in the center.

An important addition to the camper was small holding tanks for wastewater and sewage as well as a freshwater tank. Although small, these tanks added a lot to the comfort level and utility of the camper.

Along one side of the camper normally behind the driver’s seat was a small couch. This couch would fold out into a bed for additional sleeping capacity. The other side of the living area would usually contain a small dinette or table.

Although very basic, these features made the camper a lot more livable. With care and planning it was entirely possible to take extended trips with this unit. As RV users began to discover all the features and practicality of these little motor homes sales increased. The four-cylinder Toyota chassis was quite economical to drive even if it was not very fast.

As the weight of the camper increased the performance would decrease. Although the manufacturers tried to keep the weight down by using lightweight building methods and materials, these campers were pushing the limits of the capacity of the Toyota half ton pickup. Some critics began to question the overall safety of these machines with people and their belongings on board.

It was about this time that the weakness of the half ton pickup chassis began to show. Some people were experiencing failures of the rear axle due to excess weight and overloading. This led to a recall to replace the axle with a sturdier version.

When the RV manufacturers saw a demand for these vehicles, they began to design even bigger and longer Toyota motor homes.

Having lived and traveled in a Toyota Motor Home, I have fond memories of this type of RV. Discover more about the little RV at http://www.thorntonnetsales.com/toyotamotorhome.

Lee McPherron

Are you trying to find a Toyota Motor Home?

Even though the Toyota motor home is not as common as it once was, there are still thousands of good units available.

At first the problem seem to be insurmountable and impossible but with some planning and perseverance, the goal of locating a good camper can be obtained.

In this article we will discuss three different ways to come up with the perfect motorhome. These are searching the local area, exploring the internet sites, and networking with friends and family. After reading this article, you will have a better understanding of how to find your motorhome.

1. Local Search

Searching the local area is a great way to find a camper to examine and possibly purchase. Keep your eye peeled for a motor home that is sitting in a drive way with a For Sale sign on it.

You might even make note of any rv that you see that seems to be sitting for a couple of seasons without moving. Although it is not offered for sale, a discreet inquiry may encourage the present owner to sell it.

There are various “auto trader” magazines for sale at gas stations and convenience stores that are a good source of leads for your local area.

Finally, don’t forget the classified ad newspapers that are usually free or very low cost.

2. Online Search

Used motor homes can also be found for sale on line. You can use the internet a couple of different ways

For starters, you may want to checkout the online websites of local newspapers. These websites often include a automobile section classified ads.

Be sure to browse the classified ad website for your local area as well as areas within reasonable travel distance. These websites are designed to let owners sell their belongings, like a motor home.

The giant auction website will also have a few listings for Toyota motorhomes for auction. This auction website is a good place to judge the actual market value of the various models of Toyota motor homes.

A search engine query for “used motor homes for sale” may turn up dealers or individuals who have the model of motor home you are trying to find.

3. Networking

Be sure to let all your friends, coworkers, and family members know that you are interested in buying a Toyota motor home.

It is possible that some one that you see every day may have a relative or friend that has a unused camper that could possibly be for sale.

Spread the word far and wide that you are in the hunt for a Toyota RV and you may be surprised what you find.