Toyota, is it too much to ask to be like them?

[greg334]

OK in the past week or so we have heard all this 'stuff' about Toyota. GM, Ford and Chrysler seem to be desperate along with the US media to trash Toyota.

The doom and gloom that Toyota is having, many seem to think this is a BIG downfall for them, but unlike the massive recalls Ford Chrysler and GM have had in the recent past, this just shows that they are the same now as the other companies on the quality end of things for a bit but they are handling it quite differently, with speed and not blaming anyone as of yet but just getting the problem fixed.

I would think that if our two domestic car companies would follow Toyota's lead in handling problems, they may end up getting market share but who can trust them?

 

[layoutshooter]

Set aside the fact that the management of a U.S. company would never shut down a plant for this or stop selling that care. Can you imagine what the UAW would do if they shut down a line until a problem could be fixed? Does riot come to mind?

 

[chefdennis]

I give Toyota Motors Kudos on how they have handled this situation...not a chance in he** that a American car company / uaw would think about closing plants and stopping sales until the problem was fixed....

 

[layoutshooter]

It is being handled well. It will not happen with a U.S. company. Both our management and labor are short term thinkers.

 

[RLENT]

this just shows that they are the same now as the other companies on the quality end of things for a bit but they are handling it quite differently, with speed and not blaming anyone as of yet but just getting the problem fixed.

Last night I delivered a load of "PEDAL ASSBLY ACCEL LHD" to TMMI - and every one of the plastic totes had special bright orange tags taped to them, indicating they were a newly revised QC'd part.

They went directly into the plant, and not to the logistics warehouse where I've always delivered before.

Expect them to have this handled in short order - they are on it like dogs on a bone.

 

[greg334]

Well I heard from others tonight over at GM, they used the same parts for some of their pontiac vehicles but can't confirm it yet. Their position is "wait until there is a problem, then we may fix it"

A long time ago, Toyota was building cars in Japan and a bunch of cars came here with a slight problem with the A/C units. When it was discovered, they had teams of techs ready to fly into the ports and repair the problem. It took them some $8 million and 120 people to fix every car. The problem was a whistling noise that was a person could not hear but the instruments picked the sound up.

Nissan also is another company where they seem to take things a bit seriously.

I had a GT R for a while and I got a call from Nissan to have some "issue" taken care of. They didn't want me to bring the car into the nearest dealer but they wanted to fix the car where I was at - which was at home. They came over with a 40 foot trailer and pulled the car into it and fixed the problem. It was a defective bushing for something in the rear. Now mind you I was lent the car by one of the dealers for testing, it is an $75,000 car and has been driven hard but here is a company that is building these things in such a way that they don't take chances for the customer. Could you expect anything less from a company that builds a car where the engine is built in a clean room?

I wish it would happen here with Ford or GM.

 

[layoutshooter]

I heard a report the other day that Pontiac was recalling the Vibe. Toyota is handling the recall. The Vibe was made at a Toyota plant. GM is no longer on that joint project. I only heard that report once.

 

[jaminjim]

I prefer the way Rolls Royce use to handle there service issues.(admittedly a very long time ago) As the stories go If or when you reported a problem, or they found out about a problem, they were known to sneak in during the dark of night and correct the problem without telling anyone. Therefore they never had to admit to ever having a problem or a dissatisfied customer.

 

[greg334]

That's one of the wishful thinking for Rolls owner but far from the truth. They were very responsive to problems with cars through a very good network of factory trianed people and at one time they handled the parts for any car they made directly without any issues.

Since their ownership by the British government in 1971 and their trimming of costs thanks to the BLC mindset of C.H.E.A.P. managment, the service to the owner went sharply downhill and many of the times an owner was forced to have someone other than the dealer service the car, leaving the car a mess quickly. In order to fund the company, they sold their massive inventory of part off to cut costs, they stopped testing componets (until the mid-80s they tested components with such thoroughness that failure rate was nearly non-existent) and they continued to cut manufacturing costs to the point that the SSII at the end of its production was a pain in the a** for a lot of owners to drive, and the Sprit/Spur was not the cutting edge it should have been.

 

[Oilerman1957]

As a matter of fact the Uaw wasnt allowed to shut down a line until the late 80's for quality issues. Lines go down many times for quality issues. I can say that things have changed at GM as far as quality goes. The difference between the 80's and now are tremendous as quality goes.

 

[layoutshooter]

Things can change, they need to. I remember the short while that I worked at Ford, the Wayne Assembly Plant in Wayne Mich. That was way back in 1969. I was not there long, Ford got rid of me when they found out that I had a 1A draft status and the UAW did not care since I was not a member yet and they wanted my spot for someone who could pay dues.

Any who, I used to be amazed watching what was going on while those cars rolled down that line. One worker used to put empty pop bottles, glass back then, inside the door and then put the panel on. Another, a teacher that no longer taught, used to put a big dent in the roof of every 10th car that went down the line. The guy that should have been training me was drunk and sleeping most of the time. It was no surprise to me when the Big 3 started to lose ground to Toyota over quality issues.

Things seem to be better now, I hope that trend continues. They have a long way to go if they want to compete.

 

[greg334]

As a matter of fact the Uaw wasnt allowed to shut down a line until the late 80's for quality issues. Lines go down many times for quality issues. I can say that things have changed at GM as far as quality goes. The difference between the 80's and now are tremendous as quality goes.

Sorry Oilman but the quality for GM products are still poor for the US market because the consumer is leasing vehicles, not buying them. GM, like Ford and Chrysler know the little secret that leasing a car takes the burden off of them and onto the asset holder. It is a big scam when you know what is going on, the consumer doesn't care, they only know that after 3 years, they turn the vehicle in. If it gives them problems, it goes to the dealer. Once the vehicle is turned in, it is auctioned off and someone else's problem. GM, Ford and Chrysler all knows this, but the difference is their oversea operation, like for the Japanese or German market, quality rules.

 

[Oilerman1957]

Things have changed alot, workers now know they can be fired over missing work, producing bad parts, slowing down the line, and the UAW cant get there jobs back as it is all written into the contract now. There will always be problems with cars, just to many parts and although they may pass quality checks that doesnt mean they wont fail down the lline. Toyota was in such a rush to be #1 they are now finding out its not so easy to be #1

 

[Oilerman1957]

Greg, GM has not even leased vehicles for 2 yrs now i think. Although i think they have started leasing again now.

 

[layoutshooter]

Things have changed alot, workers now know they can be fired over missing work, producing bad parts, slowing down the line, and the UAW cant get there jobs back as it is all written into the contract now. There will always be problems with cars, just to many parts and although they may pass quality checks that doesnt they wont fail down the lline. Toyota was in such a rush to be #1 they are now finding out its not so easy to be #1

Happy to hear that bad workers can be gotten rid of. That was always a problem. I could never understand why the UAW protected them. Seems to me that they would know that if the company failed, so did they. Seen a lot of that stuff at Great Lakes Steel when I worked there. Drunks, guys smoking pot on the job, stealing from the company etc. The union protected them too.

 

[Oilerman1957]

Nothing but lack of competition, problem was back then that mangement was also drinking and stuff, took GM to long to fix those problems and back then there were 500.000 workers or so as the big 3 had control. Im sure there are still problem workers as there are just so many employees that your going to have bad apples. But most workers there now care about quality and do a good job.

 

[layoutshooter]

I don't doubt that some things change. They need to do a better job of getting the word out. The quality had better be there or saying that things are better and then falling down again will make it worse.

I know that I am NOT impressed with my 2002 F250. I have had to get the front hubs replaced, it was under warrenty at the time. I was also told that they go bad often and was a known problem.

Same with the right side manifold. They go out every 60,000 miles. Only the right side. Ford knows and will not fix it.

That is the kind of stuff that does not bode well.

Sort of like the electrical problems on the M2 Freighliners. Windshield wipers turning on by themselves, lights flickering. Known problems, not being taken care of. The replacement parts are the same as the original.

 

[Oilerman1957]

I agree. As you said, they still have a ways to go.

 

[layoutshooter]

Let's hope that they get their act together. The country needs a strong auto industry. It is vital to our defense.

It is up to both union and management to get off their butts and fix this stuff. It is not that hard, you just have to want to fix it. Old habits die very hard.

Everything got out of wack here. The wage packages, both union and salary. Lack of interest in the product. That "we are owed" feeling on the part of all parties and so on.

It is a shame, it once was a proud industry. They got to big for their britches and lost their edge.

 

[greg334]

Oilman, they have never stopped leasing. When they were begging for money, they were running ads for employee leases with employee discounts, slapping the face of the people who want that jammed down their throat. What I think you may of heard of is the GMAC leasing was stopped on a lot of vehicles.

The mess of the workers getting away with things still continues, it doesn't matter.

Layout we have a strong auto industry, it includes Toyota, GM, Ford, Fiat, Honda, VW, Mercedes, and all the others but the weak ones were GM, Ford and Chrysler (now Fiat). The orginal domestic companies lost market share because of their inablity to produce a product that people would buy. The playing field was leveled in the 1980s when Levin and others messed with importation of foreign cars and further by some of the tricks used by the FTC against the japanese.

It all comes down to our original domestic companies lost market share and unlike their competitors they could not understand what was going on.

Because of the stupidity of the mindset of this region, we forget that GM and Ford are not domestic companies, they are international companies and have been since the 1920s. They are just like Toyota, Honda and others who are publically traded and more importantly the UAW propaganda that money made here goes to Japan or Germany is as false as saying money made by GM in China comes right back here - in either case it does not. See no one gets the idea that the money stays here in the form of stock and employment. Sure some of the profits go to the home company, in the case of Ford, it is Ford Europe, Ford Canada, Ford Germany - just replace Ford with GM and you got the US corporate structure. Toyota has invested heavely into the country because their market is here, as they have in other parts of the world, being number one with japanese management is a lot different than being number one with a blind US managment using 80 year old management techniques.

Irregardless what happened at GM, it is still GM with the same arrogance and ignorance from the top to the workers. We the people allowed the bankruptcy to be pushed through because we were told we just had to save the company but the truth is coming out slowly and it appears to be that we were lied to about being paid back what we as a country lent them and that it will be a better company. They are paying back through loop hools in the agreement which means we don't get the interest. But alas the only real truth that came out of this is still that there won't be a real change to the leadership of the company, the old guard just rid themselves of debt and responsiblity and got to keep their jobs. Remember that Kmart was managed in the same exact way, right into the ground and the guy at the top is going to pay for it, so should Lutz and Wagener and others at the top of GM.