Toyota Spinning Out Of Control
Our economy is struggling. Even more so if you are working for the automobile industry.
I hired in at Ford Motor Company back in August of 1972. I put in thirty five years of service in before I retired in March of 2007. I have to admit that quality was not the first thing on our minds when I hired in. We didn’t have much competition back then, and how many vehicles went out the door was what we were more concerned about.
When the oil producing nations hit us with the oil embargo, many of us were laid off for a long time. I had a lot of my friends that never got called back to work. Fortunately I was called back after a short lay-off.
With the focus on fuel efficient cars. the Japanese came on the scene with some vehicles that everyone used to laugh at. If it was made in Japan, it was no good. That changed and changed very fast. People started to buy these vehicles so they could save money on their fuel costs. The competition made us take a long hard look at what we were producing.
We did not realize this at the time, but this competition made us take a long hard look at the products we were producing. Can we make them more fuel efficient, with an eye toward a better quality vehicle? Competition will always make a better product for the public.
This all came to life for me when Ford Motor Company sent me and about thirty other employees to the Mazda Plant in Hiroshima, Japan. It was one of the high points of my life. Not only Mazda and it’s employees, but the whole people of Japan that embraced us and made us welcome in their country, is something that I will never forget.
Mazda took us on a tour of their facility. There is a place at the end of the assembly process were the cars are kept for any final repairs before they are shipped out to dealers. All Ford facilities had this area also. As we started to walk into that area, we were told that those cars were just being given routine preparations for final delivery, and we were not allowed to enter. We could see repairs being performed, we just didn’t know what they were doing. Clearly, they didn’t want us to know what they were doing either.
As I look back at my thirty five years of service with Ford, I saw some incredible changes in quality occur. We went from no concern for quality to producing some of the best quality vehicles in the world. The quality of our vehicles would equal or surpass anything that the Japanese had to offer. What bothered me the most was when Ford, Chrysler, or GM had a concern with one of their vehicles, it was front page news. That was good, because we made it better. I can’t say the same for Toyota.
Some of my family and friends own Japanese vehicles. They would swear that the Japanese vehicles were built far superior then anything that the American automakers had to offer. Our news media fueled this way of thinking in America. I told them what I had seen and the employees that I spoke to in the Mazda plants. They build them just like we do and they have the repairs, just like we do.
I really believe that for years the Japanese auto makers had the US media in their hip pocket. Every time they had a problem, you would find it in the back page of the newspaper. Not so when an American auto maker had a recall. That was always front page news.
Toyota’s day finally arrives. They can’t hide anymore. They are not just having a problem with the accelerator sticking, now it is a brake problem with the very popular Prius. It’s not all the problems that I am upset with, it’s how they are handling it. They aren’t just coming out and taking care of their customers. They had to be dragged out into the open before they would even acknowledge that they had an issue. Now their are problems with the steering. Has there been some type of cover up on some of these issues?
I for one, don’t feel sorry for them one bit. Nor for any of those people who bought their cars. After all they are better built cars…. right? It’s OK. Toyota said you can still drive their cars…. right? It may be until fall before they can fix yours, but don’t worry. Nothing is going to happen to you. You won’t crash your car…. right? You won’t die or injure anyone….. right? No……that won’t happen to me?
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