Sweet Home…Tacoma?

15th February 2010

It’s getting a little hard to keep up with all of the Toyota recall news these days. Late Friday, Toyota announced yet another safety-related recall. This time it is for the Tacoma pickup. In some 2010 model year Tacoma 4WD trucks, the front drive shaft “may include a component that contains cracks that developed during the manufacturing process. As those vehicles are used, the cracks may eventually lead to the separation of the drive shaft at the joint portion,” according to Toyota. Owners of the affected vehicles will be notified next month. Toyota says that there are approximately 8000 vehicles that have the potentially bad drive shafts.

The recalls are truly piling up now, and it’s hard to imagine how Toyota’s reputation can survive much more of this. As I’ve said before, Toyota literally built its reputation on the high quality of its products, and seemed to actively encourage its customers to think of their products as appliances, but appliances that never fail to get you where you are going. Because they have foregone trying to make any real emotional attachment to their products, how will consumers react now? You can get better quality and better styling, performance and prices elsewhere. Brands that come to mind are Ford, Chevrolet and Hyundai. This is clearly a case of living by the sword. Now the sword has turned on them, and they may die by it - or at least severely injured.

Toyota may find themselves answering this question from their customers, “If the big wheels don’t keep on turning, how will I get home to see my kin?”