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Originally Posted by Tundrav8yamaha
You don't have to agree with me but the Quality on part's content isn't the same as before  there is a lot of cost cutting going on and that is fact sadly.ERik |
Toyota was hit by two bolts of lightning in the mid-1990's that helps explain the slight to moderate decline in initial reliability (long term durability is still excellent):
1) In 1994 the Clinton administration proposed a 100% import tax on all luxury Japanese cars, essentially booting Lexus, Infiniti and Acura out of the USA market. Just hours before this new tax was implemented, Toyota was able to save Lexus by agreeing to
tremendously expanding the percentage of "made in the USA" parts it uses to build Toyotas. So since the mid-1990's quality has declined because Toyota hasn't been completely successful is getting its USA parts suppliers to build parts to Toyota's lofty defect free standards. Americans are what they are - sloppy and not commited to quality and there's nothing Toyota can do to change our culture.
2) The Japanese Yen kept rising after 1993, making it increasingly difficult for Toyota to maintain profitability of vehicles it sold in the USA.
Then from the late 1990's until 2007 Toyota faced another problem: It greatly expanded it's model line offerings because the public wanted new models and was willing to buy them. But this expansion project ended up becoming overly ambitious and there was insuffient development time allocated to make each model offering as defect free as possible.
Realizing that Toyota's quality image was at stake if it continued to release new models that hadn't been fully perfected, the CEO of Toyota made a bold new decision: put the brakes on new model offerings until the bugs were worked out even if it sacrificed sales and profits.
So we shall soon see if this new policy improves the situation. A good test is the new 2009 Corolla. If that all new model proves to be free of serious defects then we can look forward to good quality from Toyota again.