As Reported by the Associated Press:
In a stunning and unprecedented move, Toyota Motor Corp. on Tuesday halted sales of most of its popular models in the U.S. in response to growing concerns that possible defects may cause the vehicles to accelerate unintentionally.
The Japanese car maker, which long has been viewed as the leader in automotive quality, said it told its dealers to stop selling eight models, including the Camry and Corolla sedans, two of the biggest sellers in the U.S. market. Other models affected by the move include the RAV4 and Highlander sport-utility vehicles and the Tundra pickup truck.
The eight models represented 57% of Toyota's 2009 U.S. sales. Toyota also said it will stop producing the affected vehicles at several North American plants for one week starting Feb. 1.
Until recently, Toyota had said it believed the problem mainly stemmed from floor mats getting jammed against the gas pedal, but later said its accelerator assembly's electronics could be a factor as well.
Last week, Toyota recalled 2.3 million vehicles in the U.S. affected by the accelerator assembly problem. That was on top of an earlier recall of 4.2 million vehicles to fix the floor mat issue. About 1.7 million vehicles are subject to both recalls.
Toyota will expand its recall of vehicles with defective gas pedals to Europe, a person close to the matter said Monday. The person said Toyota expects to recall roughly two million vehicles in Europe.
Such a large and public quality problem is a big blow for Toyota, a company that last year passed General Motors Co. to become the world's largest auto maker by sales and for years leveraged its reputation for quality to pull customers from GM, Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC.
How the mighty have fallen.
For many years, Toyota's advertising slogan was "The Best Built Cars in the World".
And, they backed it up with amazing build quality.
There were a lot of reasons for it.
Their plants were far newer than US auto plants, having been completely rebuilt following World War II, while U.S. plants had been around since the twenties.
Their design engineering was state of the art, helped vastly by the fact that their newer, more precise assembly equipment was able to hold much closer tolerances than their U.S. competitors.
And their workers maintained a magnificent work ethic fueled both by Toyota management and the Japanese culture.
But ultimately, their American competitors caught up.
Newer assembly plants were built, and filled with even newer, even more precise assembly equipment.
Computer aided design practices tightened tolerances and improved build quality.
And, as Toyota plants began to be built in the US, their labor force became more closely aligned to the American work ethic presented by the United Auto Workers Union.
Now, Toyota is suffering the slings and arrows of real world manufacturing of complex assemblies: Quality oriented vehicle recalls.
Just as their U.S. competitors have for many years.
But, there's a difference.
When Chrysler or GM have a recall, as both have had in the past six months, they leave it up to the dealers to fix, and make running changes to the vehicles on the production lines as revised parts become available.
That means that while the revised parts are being engineered, prototyped, manufactured and delivered, the assembly lines keep on cranking out cars and trucks with the old pieces.
Meaning that they go out to the dealers to be repaired there, either before or after they are delivered to the retail customer.
That's the way it's been done for generations.
But now, Toyota has changed the game.
Again.
Instead of keeping the assembly lines running while they figured out a fix, they decided not to build any more incorrect vehicles.
They decided to stop producing vehicles with a known problem.
That's an unthinkable and unprecedented move in the American automotive business.
And while it will have incalculable costs as far as profits, it may well re-establish the company as builders of "the best built cars in the world".
That may well turn out to be priceless, once consumers realize that Toyota has placed their well-being and satisfaction ahead of short term corporate profitability.
Not to mention the message it sends to workers throughout the company.
Well done.
“Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude.” ---- Ralph Marston
“Excellence is the unlimited ability to improve the quality of what you have to offer.” ---- Rick Pitino
