Threxx

As a continuation of this post a made a few months back...

http://www.businessweek.com/autos/co...tos+index+page

Nearly 4 times the number of recalls in the 3 years prior to that.

On the bright side it'll be pretty hard for Toyota to make 2007 any worse... so it can only get "better" from here.

PhilipMSPT

iTrader: (5)

Maybe.

Toyota is still churning new products and ideas. Within the next year, we'll get a new Tundra and LS600hL, and start IS-F production, new Corolla production (which is out in every country now except North American countries), & new Scion xB and xD production. This doesn't even include planned production and releases for MY2008/9 such as redesigned Toyota and Lexus SUVs, more performance coupes, and newly redesigned hybrids.

Toyota must be very careful with their progress. They're running too fast because of demand. I would rather have Toyota/Lexus be a little more expensive with top notch quality, instead of cost-cutting and poor quality...

Unfortunately, Toyota/Lexus is becoming a little more expensive with much-less-than-perfect quality...

rsantiago

Question: Is there a distinction in terms of fit and finish in how Toyota's are made in Japan in contrast to Toyota's build in the USA.

Threxx

Well that's a good question, and while the easy answer is to say "yes" when looking at Japanese made Lexus models compared to American made Toyota models... but a lot of that has to do with actual higher quality PARTS, and greater attention to detail that is expected to be put into a Lexus.

A better comparison, really, would be to compare the same exact model made in Japan and made in the US.

I know that for example I have two friends that are room mates and both have 2003 Accords that they bought at about the same time, both of them are EX model sedans, but one has navigation and one doesn't. Accords with nav, at least at the time (not sure about now) were built in Japan, as evidenced by his VIN# starting with the letter "J". Non-nav Accords were built in Ohio here in the US.

I found this fact pretty interesting and did an extremely close comparison between the two when they first got them... checked everything I could get my hands on - exterior panel gap consistency and margins, quality/uniformity/integrity of interior assembly, stitching, rattles/noises, etc... I found a couple of difference between the two but about as many in favor of the US-made Accord as I found in favor of the Japan-made Accord.

Both cars currently have about 30k miles on them and have had no mechanical issues. The US-made Accord did have one trim issue with a drooping piece of weather stripping on the driver's side door that had to be reattached. But that's it.

People say that the canadian made RXs are lower quality than the Japanese made RXs but I've compared those too and don't see much difference visually, and they seem to have some rattling problems no matter where they were built, too. But even if the canadian models were a bit worse, I wouldn't say that's necessarily normal - some of it I might attribute to it being Lexus' first time building a north american sold lexus model anywhere outside of Japan... growing pains.

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

and yet they still are near the top in long term reliability despite all this

ES350Bob

Those numbers are astounding but the contrast between CEO Watanabe's approach of being so apologetic over quality issues affecting his customers that he bows, and that experienced here by some Lexus owners with problem vehicles is like night and day.

Threxx

The soonest that even MID-term reliability rankings come out is JD Power's 3 year dependability survey, and so far the newest models they've ranked are 2003s, since they can't predict the future or accelerate time.

Now considering in the year 2003 (which is a mix of 2003 and 2004 models actually sold), Toyota had only 210,000 recalls... I'm not sure durability reports for 2003 models is necessarily going to be reflective of 2006 and 2007 models sold in the year 2006 where there were about 25 times the number of recalls for Toyota.

spwolf

what do recalls have to do with 2006 models? In fact, I will bet that more than 90% of recalls was for models before 2003.

Recalls are safety measure, not reliability.

ES350Bob

There are recalls for various years including 06 model Toyota and also Lexus RX. This is one example by doing a search where accidents are attributed to reason for recall. Recalling 9.3 million vehicles in the last 3 years seems like a lot of safety issues if recalls are limited only to safety reasons and not reliability.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13833907/

Richie

IMO recalls arren't bad, it's how the company handles it that can make or break it.

newr

This is not entirely correct. Yes, I agree that some recalls are not related to reliability issue but some others do.

STIG

From my experience, my 06 4runner has ZERO issues, but my IS350 has rattles like 20 years old Ford Yugo.

I guess first year model take the biggest hit in the quality issues. People still want new products from Toyota, yet complains when there are some issues. The only way to keep recalls and bugs out is to keep selling the old models with no new technologies.

doug_999

I remember reading something a while back about Accords made in the US vs. Japan (it was early on when they had been building Accords here for only a couple of years and people were saying American cars were crap cause they were put together by Americans). Turns out the cars from Ohio were better quality.

mmarshall

Sometimes the two go together. Legally, recalls are primarily for safety matters, especially the government-mandated ones, but often those matters affect reliability as well. For instance, unreliable brakes are often unsafe brakes as well.

And an engine or transmission breakdown, in heavy or high-speed traffic, can also be dangeous.

spwolf

there you go... Tundra was "recalled" to turn off airbag switch because of some silly law that requires latch seats at BACK, if you want to be able to turn off passanger airbag.

I bet most customers will not want to do this recall.

Again, more than 90% of recalls were for old cars. Biggest recall was for cars made from '92 to '98.