Toyota Recall

Toyota has hit the headlines over the years over the defects in several of their models which has sent it on a public relations and safety campaigns relating to its vehicles. Notably is the Toyota safety campaign in North America for certain models of Toyota as well as Lexus brands concerning the floor mat entrapment of accelerator pedals, later on it extended to other models in November 2009.

Toyota grew at a record speed and could not keep up with the speed in which it was growing. They are a centralized company and Japan only made the decisions. This prevented the company to keep up with the safety problems. The process that Toyota external suppliers follow when improving product and making sure the product is functioning properly before shipping to Toyota needs to be improved before they release the product from their warehouse to be sent to Toyota. This problem began when the company started to rapidly grow. Toyota’s lack of communication led to the faulty gas pedal recall.

Toyota faced a challenge related to the poor visibility and low quality of a supplier for the Suprima model. The Japanese brand, being related to a top quality product and a Just in Time manufacturing scheme could not afford to have stock out problems nor not meeting consumers’ demand for quality.

Companies that decide to outsource do so for a number of reasons. The primary reason is to achieve cost savings or better cost control over the outsourced function. Companies usually outsource to a vendor that specializes in a given function more efficiently than

As stated above, it is worth observing the phenomena of auto recalls in both small convenience issues and in major safety defects. One of the factors that showed to have the most bearing on the economic effects and subsequent customer loyalty was which component the recall was being issued for. According to Rupp, the three components that cause the greatest drop in stock value and sales of their vehicles were air

As if this weren’t enough, quality problems mounted week after week. Only months later in February 2010, the NHTSA revealed that it had received claims citing another life threatening defect in the break system for the Toyota Prius. More than 400 thousand Prius recalls resulted. In April of 2010, customers reported handling issues in the Lexus brand which resulted in another recall of 9,400 Lexus cars and a “Don’t Buy: Safety Risk” rating from Consumer Reports. Also in April, the company voluntarily recalled Siennas to address a problem with corrosion on a spare tire cable. Later that month, Toyota voluntarily recalled 2003 Sequoia SUVs to improve the stability controls. 2010 Tacomas were also recalled for defective front drive shafts. Once the quality icon, Toyota had hit a really low point; so low that credit

In May of 2006, The Toyota Motor Corporation initiated a recall of nearly one million vehicles around the world to replace faulty parts that could cause drivers to lose control of the steering wheel. The recall affected vehicles across 10 models, including the popular Prius. The intermediate shafts and sliding yokes in the recalled cars lacked the necessary strength and could distort or crack under strong pressure, causing drivers to lose control of the steering wheel, according to Toyota (ConsumerAffairs.Com). Owners of these vehicles were allowed to have these defects repaired at the cost of Toyota and required approximately on hour to complete (News.com.au).

Although Toyota invented this new hybrid vehicle more than ten years ago, it did not offer the car to the USA consumers immediately. The main reason was that Toyota was aware of the new technology challenges. While Toyota was on the market research and new product development, other companies were focusing on merger and acquisition. Brand recognition, technology changes and improvement take several years to finish and Toyota wanted to launch a product which has cleared all the possible obstacles such as space, efficiency, speed, safety, weight which can meet all consumers ' expectations.

Due to Toyota’s financial greed and unethical practice, vehicles were wrongly equipped with faulty brakes, sticking pedals and poor quality door looks, which caused death of many Toyota customers and hundreds of dollars in damages. When a company like Toyota acts in an ethically questionable manner, it causes the company to lose customers and develop a negative reputation. Customer tend to lose faith in the company and have to look for better service

The purpose of this report is to examine if the reasoning behind well-known car manufacturer, Toyota’s loss of revenue and leading market position is alone as a result of extensive product recalls following a fatal crash of a Lexus ES 350 on August 28th 2009. The journal article, “Toyota Crisis: Management Issue?” (Yuanyuan Feng 2010) provides an outline of the key factors that triggered the 2009 Toyota crisis, and explores whether the fall in the company’s returns by 19% were caused purely as a result of the recall and safety concerns, or something much deeper.

This paper will address the identification of processed used by Toyota Corporation during the accelerator crisis. It will identify the process used and the core problems with the process. In part A of the paper the paper addresses the issues that began with sticky gas pedals, floor mats, and pedal entrapment and braking issues on some models of Toyotas vehicles. The quality of the vehicle was the issue. In part B of the paper the issue was safety and this lead to drivers dying because of safety issues. In part C of the paper Toyota has a lean process established that had no buy in from employees or Leadership which contributed to issues with their product. Toyota

According to a research, many companies feel that the cons outweigh the pros and that this type of business practice should not be considered anymore. It also can give the persona that a company is trying to cut corners and costs, which in turn, can look cheap. It can take away from the essence of the feel of a company. People want the special touch and do not want to be another face in the crowd. Outsourcing adds more distance between the guest and the

Toyota is a key player in global automotive market. Its structure constitutes if various production plants in different locations and a very strong branding which helps it capture a major market share. Like other enterprises, Toyota has several strengths and weakness which makes it what it is now. Toyota heavily invests in Research and development which helps it come up reputable product line which is spread out throughout the world because of its strengthening global distribution network however its recent product recalling, loose grip in key geographic areas and wrong allocation of resources shows that even a strong brand like Toyota has its weaknesses.

It has been created also a gap between Image and Vision. After the crisis Toyota's relationship with its main stakeholders (suppliers, national and international customers, employees, dealers and investors) was not so strong as before, because it was loosing its reputation. The investors and the suppliers were complaining because recalling million of vehicles, and the customers were disappointed because they were not receiving what they expected.

One potential threat for Volkswagen is that Toyota may respond strategically by also cutting its prices. However, given Toyota’s quality problems over the past year, they will not be able to lower prices, as this possibly would create the perception of lower quality.. First and foremost, Toyota needs to ensure it handles its quality problems to its customers’ satisfaction. The auto maker needs to ensure the public perception is that Toyota is being upfront, honest, and responsible in dealing with recalls and the