Toyota recalls 1.53 million cars globally

[Elmendorf]

sigh, poor Toyota

http://www.3news.co.nz/Toyota-recalls-1 ... fault.aspx

[DXROLLA]

nah not poor toyota, if they did there job properlly the first time there shouldnt be any problems

[Makaveli]

First of all I think the media seems to blow it out of proportion as recalls been around forever. Other Manufacturers are having recall issues as well. Toyota just manufacturers/sells more cars, hence the impact is far more significant.

Also cars are becoming way more complex these days. Compare the electronics in a 1980's car to your average 2000's car. My first car had drum brakes, and hardly any electronics eg: cassette player etc

Most new cars have ABS, Air Bags, EFI and/or Direct Injection, Electric Seats, Fly By Wire Throttle control, cruise control, stability control, hid lights, sensors just for about everything etc etc.

[DXROLLA]

And if these systems arnt reliable enough why are they in mass produced cars? I cant remember the exact details but toyota does not do as much research and developement as they use to hence why there are so many recalls

[Makaveli]

Car Manufacturers have to meet government issued standards ie: emissions/fuel efficiency and safety. Hence ABS and Air Bags are standard on every car and most car manufacturers are using direct injection to reduce fuel consumption.

Toyota doesn't manufacture the entire car. They have a lot of suppliers of parts. eg: Denso might make injectors and spark plugs, Stanley might supply them with Head lamps and Aisin provides them with gearboxes.

Like I said earlier, it's becoming far too complex. Board of directors are pushing for cost cuts and efficiency (company profitability), workers struggling to keep up with the pace or stay focused. Quality assurance decreases. They just need to find a good balance between profit and quality. At the moment I think they haven't got the right combination.

[rollaholic]

cars in the 80s were built by engineers, cars today are built by accountants. its a pretty competitive market right now, which means pennies are being pinched everywhere.

this is the result imho

[DXROLLA]

Toyota asemble the final product and have plenty of time to do developement with the final product, if they dont know what they are putting in there cars why would they put it in?
As the head of toyota nz said toyota has grown to fast and they have lost a lot of time for the development that they use to do

[BZG Wagon]

Toyota make over 9 million cars a year. And a lot of recalls are for relatively minor issues.

I'd be more worried about a car company which doesn't recall cars.

On the specs debate though; I must say most high production toyotas (like the corolla) are, and have always been, comparatively lower spec'd than their competitors.

[touge_ae101]

Like I said earlier, it's becoming far too complex. Board of directors are pushing for cost cuts and efficiency (company profitability), workers struggling to keep up with the pace or stay focused. Quality assurance decreases. They just need to find a good balance between profit and quality. At the moment I think they haven't got the right combination.

i'm sorry i have to disagree with this statement. toyotas manufacturing system was pioneering back in the early 90's where they developed a 'lean' manufacturing strategy which uses a single piece flow line a constant pace. this pace is called the TAKT time. it is the time which the longest operation takes and no one goes faster or slower than that operation. if you want to learn more google "goldratt" and "drum buffer rope".

the whole principle behind toyotas manufacturing systems is the quality assurance and ongoing improvement through Lean manufacturing (its a whole set of principles) which states clearly that a zero tolerance for quality issues and theoretically aims to not even have to do quality control checks.

toyota does get alot of parts sub-contracted through other companies but all of these parts are specified down to very fine details by toyota itself so in effect, these other companies are just another arm of toyotas manufacturing infrastructure through having strategic partners.

the whole prius thing in the US hurt toyotas image in a big way, especially over in the US where it has been trying to get stupid americans to accept their higher quality product over yank tanks. i think with this recall they are just being ultra careful and also toyota recalls get more media attention than other companies atm.

where i think toyota is lacking is being able to source systems engineers who design the state diagrams for all these chips within the modern car that have practical understanding of how a car works and the finer details. they are missing the link between 'this is what a car does in real life engineer' and the electronics or software engineer who plays with all the PLD's, IC, and control systems in their car.

sorry for the rant i'm at uni doing manufacturing assignment tonight and in the mindset...only another 2000words to write before midnight...than home to work on the car before dyno at 9am

[neo]

*contains a abroad generalisation*

After working with some software developers who have spent several years working in Japan, I can understand the logic why this braking issue has fallen between the gaps.

If the manufacturing logic is similar to the software development logic, it will follow like the following -

'here is input x, it will *should* always be x so you must output y'.

In this case the brake components are designed to work with Toyota brake fluid with specific specifications. The engineers wouldn't even think twice about someone using a non-genuine Dot4 brake fluid which may have different characteristics, thus never designed for it.

If someone isn't over-seeing how all the components work or don't work together this type of issue makes it into the final product

Just a spin on the issue

[GX61 Mark II]

There has never been a problem with the brakes. It was just the ECU generated "brake feel" that is fed back to the brake pedal - the brakes worked fine the whole time -just under one certain circumstance (extremely slippery surface at low speed with ABS operating) the pedal felt really soft.

Hence why it was all fixed with an ecu software upgrade.

[Mr Revhead]

Honda have a recall out for the exact same issue. $5 says same supplier of that component