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Total Toyota complaints: 668
For comparison I counted the complaints for ALL GM cars for that year,
including Saturn and Pontiac.
Total GM complaints: 27
Toyota complaints were 25x the number of GM complaints for UA.
Maybe GM owners are just better drivers.
I didn't hear about any bailouts during the huge aerospace and defense job cuts that hit California during the Clinton administration. According to the report "Aerospace States' Incentives to Attract the Industry", California lost almost 170K jobs in aerospace in the '90's. Isn't that more than the entire employment of GM?
Too bad we weren't as effective as our midwest brethren in pleading our case to our rich uncle.
Southern Californians just decided to take it on the chin and tough it out.
I wonder why the Mazda CX-5 isn't the lowest gasoline cost, as it gets 26 city/35 highway? They seem to be very similar vehicles.
Valid complaint. I'll throw three perspectives at you:
1. The national economy was in much better shape
2. Some of those job losses were really job transfers to states like Arizona that had a much better business climate than CA
3. I don't think the preponderance of those jobs were "unionized"
...and maybe a fourth - The Republicans seldom get California's electoral vote and the Democrats usually do, so neither party really cared
I know, I'm a cynic!
These things seem to resemble UFO sightings... Let one get reported on local TV and all of a sudden everybody's seeing them...
signed,
Russia
:sick:
And of course, the pictured Euro product is cooler than most of the domestic lineup.
Source?
What I do know is that before the Saylor case hit the media in November 2009 Toyota had half the complaint rate of Ford per Edmunds' review. Remember they offered a million bucks if anyone could prove SUA and nobody collected.
Only after the Toyota hysteria died down have we seen recalls from Ford, of course the media hasn't given Ford nearly the same level of attention.
Now, answer honestly, does a single domestic vehicle owner think this was the car's fault? Funny when the shoe's on the other foot. LOL
The 100 year old claims the brakes failed.
His own daughter thinks he shouldn't be driving.
All it takes is one case like this and a friendly media to create hysteria.
Domestics enjoy home field advantage. None of the media outlets mention the car is from GM. I had to look at photos (!) to determine that.
Note in the case of the Kia, all the media outlets mention Kia.
Blatant bias.
You may not remember the type of vehicle, because again media outlets didn't mention it.
Again, from the photos, guess what car?
Even the wiki page doesn't mention the type of car:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Russell_Weller
Anyone else here see a pattern?
Difference between a 100-year old driver and a 47-year old driver, who drove 59 miles with UA and was able to avoid a single accident in that distance. This should be obvious to any reader.
You are having to look for GM stories like this, while Toyota and Kia stories are being widely reported in the mainstream media.
Biased? After 30 years of seeing Big Three recalls on the front page and Japanese recalls on page five, I don't think I can say that.
"Vehicle Speed Control" complaints made to NHTSA as compiled on:
http://www.arfc.org
We're not disagreeing, in fact I basically said the same thing.
The media hypes these stories when it's an import.
The 911 operator told the lady in the Kia to pull up on the gas pedal and push down on the brakes, and that worked. So obviously this was a case of mechanical blockage.
It's the conspiracy theorists who will wonder if it's more than that, but it's not. The case is very clear cut.
The pedal got stuck.
She pulled it and it got unstuck.
End of problem.
Point is why does the media only question the car when it's an import?
Of course, in the Kia case also. But Kia will get far more scrutiny.
I don't think the media has any pro-GM or anti-Kia bias. They don't know enough about cars to really handle that.
It spiked up, short term, and then dropped way down suddenly after the news got old.
Oddly the effect on Toyota was entirely temporary - their market share today is higher than it was in the fall of 2009 before the Saylor crash. So much for that.
Or a small brand.
GM is very powerful/influential, just ask Dateline NBC.
To be fair, had a Buick ran over 11 people in Korea the brand would likely be banned from that whole country on the same day it happened.
Home field advantage does exist.
To be specific, and name a source, Toyota's rate of complaints had plunged by 96% per CR May 2011, p. 16.
Before anyone says CR is biased let's remember they removed their Recommended rating from 7 Toyota models temporarily.
Still, a swift slap on the wrist taught them not to mess with the Big 3.
Nowadays they want a headline story, they attack an "import". In a recession the public is more receptive to that.
That was a bit of an adventure, driving it brake-less from my condo over to my grandmother's house. Lots of downshifting, timing the traffic lights, letting a friend lead with my Intrepid so that if I did hit something, it was one of my own cars, and emergency brake use when needed. Those foot brakes with the hand release are kinda annoying, compared to the old fashioned handbrake where you could just pull it and then twist to release.
Combine brake failure with a 100 year old man with slow relfexes and, more than likely, a slow mind, and I could easily see something like this happening.
But, they should check the brakes, just in case, to see if his story holds water.
I could also see a car that old getting a sticky throttle cable or something, which could cause sudden acceleration. Heck, I had a buddy who had an '80 Accord that would do that at random sometimes, and it was only about 8-9 years old. Thankfully, its sudden acceleration wasn't so sudden. :P
You are kidding, of course! It's blatantly obvious that through the decades the perfect foreign vehicles never have anything that wrong, and only the GM/F/C for the nee Detroit 3 got the large media attention on the local news shows and national news for major recalls.
It's that dichotomy that made the news coverage about toyota's many, expanding runaway acceleration problems and sub sequent excuses so surprising.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
My Voyager had to get repaired.
Timing is everything, so they aren't going to step on GM when they are down. Toyota and Kia were healthy, and visitors, so fair game. Put 'em on the front page and sell as many papers as you can print.
Did the media have a follow-up head line story to say the person that drove Saylor's loaner before the crash also complained about a carpet jamming? Of course not.
The "Dustbuster" vans were mostly criticized for the pointy noses, hence the nick name. The rear lights were OK but the sheetmetal underneath them that wrapped around looked odd. Volvo designed the bumpers to come up and meet the light clusters.
Also, the Dustbusters had a horrible case of buffeting when you opened the front windows. You had to crack the rear windows open else the buffeting became unbearable. Some moonroofs are like that, but you can't open the front windows? C'mon. We rented one and drove it down the entire east coast. From then on I'd go out of my way to rent something else.
They were a poor design that never really challenged Dodge's leadership. They were too narrow, the engine was undersized and still used pushrods (so did Dodge but imports were going multivalve), I could go on and on.
GM never took minivans seriously. The Encore was astonishingly good in part because it replaced them and my expectations were low.
Given your handle you must've owned an Uplander and perhaps had a much better experience than I did, but I'd rather rent an Encore or a Traverse in a heart beat.
Currently there are 5500 or so for sale and there are even leftover 2011's AND 2012's to go along with the '13's.
Country wide search
Kind of weird tho, because this makes the 3rd time this year that production has stopped. And even tho they keep saying that sales are rising, seems kind of odd that production would be on hold for that, and for the fact that they are also selling the Ampera and the Holden versions as well as supplying General Electric with 500 per month.
They could be had with a 3.8 V6, so your 'underpowered compared to others' is making me scratch my head.
I want to say I heard there was a service bulletin for the buffeting, but I don't know for sure. Pretty sure I heard that someplace.
1st one had its transmission replaced at 77K miles, but covered by Chrysler. That was really the only major issue with all 3.
I also had a mid-80's S10 Blazer, which was the most trouble-prone vehicle I've ever owned.
I don't know what, if anything, can be made of those experiences. Individual experiences, other than to the individual, may or may not be significant...
The Montana model was arguably the best looking among those. Close friends of ours owned the Chevy version with the update nose and those doors gave them lots of problems, as did the self-healing tires. It did open my eyes to the utility of a van, though.
The 3.8l came later, early models were only 3.1 liters, weren't they? 120hp IIRC. Our rental had the latter and it struggled.
Honda didn't really get a good design until 2002, and had transmission issues until 2006 or so.
Toyota's van was too odd (Previa), then too small until 2004.
But they kept at it, along with Dodge. Today all 3 are still at it and they keep improving, though I hear Dodge may transform theirs in to a crossover. A mistake, IMHO.
That's because it was built with US supplied parts by non-union labor in my home state of Mississippi.
My '99 Quest was assembled by UAW workers in a Ford factory in Ohio but the engine was (I think) shipped over from Japan. Mine doesn't even use any oil, much less leak.
The maintenance/repair comment was a joke among the Honda crowd; they never had work done, only service (including "silent" recalls and TSBs).
Busiris, my '89 Voyager had about the best body style - short and boxy. Just needed the second slider. I did have 3 head gasket repairs on it (all under warranty thanks to the factory 7/70 that came with it). It even had real external rain gutters.
Juice, you mentioned somewhere recently that later Toyotas often don't match earlier ones. That comment made me think of the Previa.
My whole point was the media targets companies that are doing well. Glad you agree.
Hope the truth don't hurt too much.
Regards,
OW
It goes to show Toyota can get GM disease since their target is "Bigger is Better".
Truth being, Toyota quality blew away GM for decades, however. The truth hurts some loyalists but facts remain in the actual real world.
Regards,
OW
I did some research and if anything I would come to the conclusion that the quality of GM vehicles are higher than those of Toyota.
I added ALL of the complaints for model year 2002-2005 Silverados and Tundras. I also did the same for model year 2007-2010 Malibus
and Camrys. These years were pretty much picked at random, and it was easy to get sales totals for the models and years
The complaints were made to NHTSA which is the Federal Agency that oversees transportation safety. These are unsolicited and are made
by vehicle owners who perceive a safety concern with their car or truck. These are not complaints about rattles, hard dashboards or bad
gas mileage.
In the 4 model years 2002-2005 a total of approx 440,000 Tundras were sold and complaints totaled 665.
Tundra complaint rate: 1 complaint per 662 sold.
Silverado numbers were 2,724,000 and 1862 respectively
Silverado complaint rate: 1 complaint per 1,463 sold.
When I ran the numbers for the Camry and Malibu years 2007-2010:
Camry complaint rate: 1 complaint per 617 sold
Malibu complaint rate: 1 complaint per 1,179
Therfore Toyota owners made twice as many complaints to NHTSA than Chevrolet owners, at least for these models and years.
Anyone can do the math. The numbers are easily available.
I don't see the conspiracy. If your theory is true, then Audi was remarkably powerful around 1985 when the media did them in. It's not about targeting power, it is about creating hysteria, which increases viewership and readership. Media works like this: if you can't find news, create news.
So, if GM makes money in the next three months, the headlines will be "GM Barely Survives Another Quarter".
For reference, the car with the most total complaints is the 2000 Ford Focus.
I figured the rate to be 1 complaint per 65 sold.
And the worst late model complaint rate:
The 2010 Toyota Prius: 1 complaint per 84 sold. Mostly due to owners losing
brakes after going over a rough road or bump...That's a safety concern.