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Subscribe to this threadToyota responds to Ford's new initial quality ads
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epilonious @ May 12th 2008 10:36AM
"Toyota could have their cars built by children and would still have a higher quality than a Ford. Toyota's products are FAR from perfect, but they're still better than any of the Big 3's, except for a rebadged GM product produced by Toyota."
Here's the thing... if you have a 0.001 serious defect ratio... meaning only one in a thousand cars would burst into flames on the highway... then only 200 or 300 cars would ever have a wheel fall off and kill the driver when you are making hundreds of thousands of a particular model.
When you start making millions of a particular model... then you start having thousands of these cars having their engines seize or losing a wheel or catching fire and other such spectacular failures. Thousands means a greater chance that people getting on the internet and emailing each other about "that Camry that killed a family of four when..."
It happened to GM, and I predict it will happen to Toyota. People already think their full size trucks are crap and Toyota is looking tarnished because of it... and it is my prediction that in 2015 a series of quality snafu's will push Toyota back down to second best and some other manufacturer will steal their thunder. By then it may be something crazy like Renault-Nissan-Chrysler or the new Saturn or Hyundai...
Either way, the "most sold" mark seems to be a death knell for a companies perceived reliability.