Is Toyota making the world a safer place? Posted 2010/03/08 @ 06:30 AM By Myles Kornblatt
No one roots for the top dog, but Toyota already knows this. Three years ago when Business Week asked Toyota’s then CEO Katsuaki Watanabe about the company becoming the world’s largest automaker, he said, "We constantly need to think about the potential backlash against us." Watanabe and the rest of Toyota were concerned what the extra scrutiny of wearing the king’s crown would bring to the company, and in the past few months, Toyota has realized these fears.
2010 is quickly becoming the year of the recall and much of it is courtesy of Toyota. Our top recalls list named 1977 as #1 because more cars were recalled than sold in that year. But 1977’s 12.9 million cars may soon be eclipsed considering we are less than a quarter through 2010, and we are already getting close to crossing 10 million recalls in the U.S. (it’s already well over 10 million worldwide.)
Toyota, now the world’s largest automaker, planted a big surrender flag on Tuesday, January 26th. That’s the day it suspended sales of popular vehicles and announced suspension at five manufacturing plants. Since then Honda, Nissan and General Motors announced recalls of nearly 3 million vehicles total.
Honda’s Fit recall was likely already planned because it happened only a few days after Toyota’s big announcement. But the recall for Honda’s air bag expansion, GM’s power steering, and Nissan’s brake pin/fuel gauge all happened well after Toyota dropped its bomb. So it’s a suspicion that many of these new recalls are coming to the surface to take advantage of an opportunity.
When the honors student gets detention, the average troublemakers get paid less attention. In this same spirit carmakers can use Toyota’s massive recall to their advantage. Any good public relations person can see that while Toyota is in front of Congress, the public will likely easily forgive another brand’s small (by comparison) recall. But that’s not the whole equation.
The same good public relations professionals should know that there are plenty of investigative journalists raiding the National Transportation Safety Board complaint files looking for the next Toyota-sized scandal. This means any issues that companies were possibly thinking of performing a recall on are now pushed to the forefront.
This is a perfect storm to make 2010 the year of recalls. Toyota is providing a large umbrella protecting other companies in the hailstorm that is automotive recalls. But this same protection also fuels the media’s lust for the next recall story. This means once Toyota restores its good name (which it will,) the next car company to announce a recall will feel the full force of the national press.
It’s the media’s equivalent of playing hide-and-seek – you didn’t make it back to the base in time, and now you’re ‘it’. So we’re likely to see plenty more car companies come out with recalls soon because any issue under consideration will likely get fast-tracked before Toyota closes its umbrella.
The moral of this tale could be that because Toyota is spending enough time in the hot seat, the world is having more cars recalled than it would have otherwise. So there is an argument here to say that Toyota’s quality problems have potentially made us all a little safer on the roads. This doesn't excuse Toyota; it's just a byproduct.
Of course I haven’t confirmed any of this with anyone at the auto companies. It’s not worth burning my contacts on a conspiracy theory…but they are fun.
Honda’s Fit recall was likely already planned because it happened only a few days after Toyota’s big announcement. But the recall for Honda’s air bag expansion, GM’s power steering, and Nissan’s brake pin/fuel gauge all happened well after Toyota dropped its bomb. So it’s a suspicion that many of these new recalls are coming to the surface to take advantage of an opportunity.
