Thursday, January 28, 2010

"Toyota Halts Sales of 8 Models in U.S for Pedal Flaw"

Amanda Pemberton
January 28th, 2010
Bliss Kern
English 122

In the New York Times article, “Toyota Halts Sales of 8 Models in U.S for Pedal Flaw”, Nick Bunkley reports on the problem with Toyota-brand vehicles that are recalled because of the automatic acceleration. Eight models, including the Toyota Camry and Highlander, have been recalled due to the problem of the acceleration pedal sticking, causing the car to accelerate without the driver making it. The reputation that Toyota has built up for centuries, will now be effected because of this recall. With the pedal flaw, people have lost trust in Toyota. Almost half of the sales of Toyota vehicles in the past two years are a part of the fleet of recalls.

In defense of Toyota, they were not forced to make the decision to recall the vehicles. They recalled them because they want their customers to be as safe as possible. With this recall happening, sales are going to drop immensely due to the halt on production of the fleet. Also, Toyota’s regular customers are going to doubt their trust in Toyota’s safety in their vehicles. People’s lives are at a higher risk because of the defect in the car. Toyota decided to risk the sales and customers in order to have a name in their company as to fix problems immediately, even if they have to stop productions.

In my opinion, I think Toyota did the right thing by not only recalling half of their models, but by stopping the production. I am an owner of a Toyota Scion tC and my vehicle has been recalled for the floor mats getting caught under the pedal. I think that by Toyota taking the blame, and fixing the problem, that their name will only grow better within households. Many people look at it now as Toyota has safety issues, but in the long run, Toyota took a stand and refused to make the product anymore, as opposed to Ford, who’s recall of the Explorer in 2000-2001, continued to manufacture their vehicle.

1 comment:

  1. I agree with you that Toyota is doing the right thing. I have a 93'Toyota Camry and it is a great car and has lasted a long time. Nothing is going to be perfect and Toyota is doing the right thing by admitting the problems and fixing them. I think it will really show people that Toyota cares about their customers.

    ReplyDelete