Could be worse for Toyota - those Camrys could be exploding!

Getting back to Toyota now, we’ve had all kinds of calamities with automotive recalls over the years, from exploding Ford Pintos, to the big “unintended acceleration” scandal with Audi back in the 1980’s. The fact that you probably don’t even remember that will tell you what I’m about to say. This too shall pass, but not before Toyota loses a lot of ground in both market share and reputation. GM they say was the first to jump on Toyota’s neck, offering some big financial incentives to Toyota owners to come in and try the Chevy products. Good move, I say. Because a lot of those former Toyota loyalists would be driving Hondas next week if not given a robust incentive to try the American cars.

Now the Feds are jumping on. They want to look like they're doing something to keep all the soccer moms safe. If Toyota knew a lot more sooner, then I say they deserve it. But we'll never know.

Quoted in Advertising Age, Dean Crutchfield of branding agency Method brought up an excellent point. He said regardless of how hard Toyota throws itself on its sword, there will always be a level of doubt in place that the company's dealerships will have to contend with. "Can you imagine those poor dealerships are now going to have to contend with questions about whether the issue is sorted out in this model or not every time they try to sell a car?" he said. "It's going to trail them for some time to come."

Yes, it will. The Audi situation was a very interesting one. I did a fair amount of work in the car industry back in the eighties and was told by very well informed sources there was nothing wrong with the cars. The whole thing was driver error, but it messed up Audi’s reputation big time, and those dealers had to hear all kinds of inane questions and wisecracks from well misinformed showroom customers for a long time.

Ah, the car business. Never gets dull.