Give Me A Brake

We’ve all done it at one point in our lives. A single moment of ineptitude caused by either a lack of caffeine, or sleep, or both. That one time when we said or did something so breathtakingly brainless at exactly the wrong time so as to completely undermine whatever credibility we’ve scraped together over a lifetime.

At the moment, that dubious honour belongs to the Toyota Motor Company. For them it is a sticky accelerator and faulty brakes, which short of a spontaneously detaching steering wheel and an exploding gas tank, are about the two worst things that could happen to a car. As automaker 'oopsies' go, these two are biggies.

I actually feel bad for Toyota. As a former owner of two Toyotas, a Tercel and Corolla, I can attest that they were both significantly better built and more reliable than any other vehicle I have driven. A Tercel, which I owned for 8 years and a Corolla, which lasted 13 years, had very few if any maintenance issues, and with one exception, both cars started every time I turned the key (the one exception: a dead battery after 12 years of use).

Toyota’s reputation for building affordable, reliable and long-lasting vehicles has, until recently, been the envy of the automotive world. This wasn’t always the case. Like many Japanese automakers, their entry into the North American marketplace was less than stellar. Like Honda and Datsun (now Nissan), their vehicles had a reputation for being small, clunky, bland, rust-buckets (I'm excluding the sports-cars, some of which were pretty cool). Mechanically they were sound, which became the platform upon which all three automakers began an aggressive campaign to improve quality and performance.

As a child of the seventies, I witnessed the point at which North American automakers, who frequently mocked their Japanese competitors, began to churn out model after model of poorly made, mediocre cars. The Vega, the Pinto, the Pacer, the Cordoba, not to mention the inexplicably underpowered Mustang II. These cars were fraught with mechanical and handling issues as well as being prone to severe rust damage. In a word, they were crap.

The big three didn’t care. They had a fat load of market share and a consumer base drunk on the notion that anything made outside of North America was scrap. So on they went slapping together their shiny rattleboxes, seemingly oblivious to their Japanese counterpart's military-like approach to quality improvement. Surely they would figure it out eventually.

Fast-forward to 2009 and there are the big three automakers begging Washington for handouts as the bottom falls out of the economy. Could it be that their troubles had more to do with continuing to produce four wheeled trash cans for the past few decades?

Now, as Toyota scrambles to rebuild a damaged reputation, there are smirking shots being leveled from those same companies who just a few months ago had there hands out in on the steps of Capitol hill. Really? Are we going to get into a quality debate between Toyota and let's say GM? I can’t tell you exactly how many Caveliers, Sunfires, Pontiac 6000s and sundry other similar clunkers came and went in the life of my Corolla, but there were enough to make a ponderous pile of scrap metal. Don’t bring a rubber chicken to a knife fight.

The irony is, the big three automakers are most certainly no strangers to massive recalls and disquieting safety issues. Need I bring up the aforementioned Pinto?

In fairness to North American automakers, they have made some significant quality improvements. Ford is clearly a standout, having said no to bailout money they went on to demonstrate an ability to produce affordable quality cars and trucks. In the seventies, the name Ford became an acronym for Found On Road Dead. At least some things have changed.

What really irks me about the floundering North American car business is that Canadian and American auto workers, dealerships and mechanics, who are an important part of our economy, are the ones who have paid the biggest price for the worst of the big three’s arrogance. The decision to build quality vehicles comes from the top down. None of those smarmy, fat-ass executives will have to suffer and certainly pointing a derisive finger at Toyota won't 'get America working again'.

My hope is that Toyota will be able to bounce back from this damaging setback. If anything because their reputation for quality, as is also true for Honda and Nissan, was hard fought and well earned. After all, a post-recalled Toyota would still be considered higher in overall quality than most North American cars. It’s about consumer confidence, and the big three need to work a lot harder to get it back. Taking shots at a company many still consider a quality leader ain’t gonna to cut it.