Seems that quality issues for Toyota's North American market models is never ending. Following this week's massive 3.8 million cars recall in USA, due to a problem that is suspected to cause the death of 4 people in a Lexus ES, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is opening a probe into chassis corrosion issue affecting 218,000 Toyota Tundra trucks made between 2000 and 2001. Just less than one year ago, Toyota's US division Toyota Motor Sales had already dealt with a similar issue affecting Tacoma pick-up trucks. TMS had to buy back many 1995 - 2000 model year Tacoma trucks whose frames were severely rusted beyond repair. Some of the rust on these were so bad they were no longer driveable. In addition to that, Toyota also had to extend warranties, replace the entire frame at no charge to the remaining number of affected Tacoma models. Both the Tacoma and Tundra shared many similar components.
More images here.
In a report published by NHTSA Office of Defect Investigation, the federal body received 20 complaints, out of which 15 of them involved the spare tire being separated from the vehicle due to rust while another 5 involved broken brake lines at the brake force proportioning valve. You may read the report here.
Pickuptrucks.com quoted Brian Lyons, TMS Safety and Quality communications manager. According to Lyons, "1995-2004 Tacoma pickups and 2000-01 Tundras shared the same frame supplier: Toledo, Ohio-based Dana Holding Corporation. In investigating the Tacoma’s rust complaints, Toyota discovered that Dana hadn’t properly prepped Tacoma frames to resist corrosion before they were shipped to Toyota’s NUMMI manufacturing plant, where the Tacoma was assembled."
But if there is one thing I learned from the industry when it comes to vehicle defects and recall, is to never completely trust the words of assemblers. They ALWAYS push the responsibility back to the suppliers and conveniently ignore the fact that assemblers were the ones who provided the specs, cost, and sometimes even the detail engineering and did the final part inspection and sign-off. Plus, I think pushing the responsibility squarely back to Dana Holding is surely not consistent with the "Toyota Way" of managing lean supplier chain. It sounds more like GM and their difficult relationship with Western part suppliers. The tenets of Toyota Way teaches about the 5-Why(s) of solving problems together, and if necessary Toyota would even loan their own engineers to the supplier's plant, something which is not acceptable in a typical Western context where suppliers and manufacturers operate with the mentality of "what goes on in my plant is my business." Which reminds me of Akio Toyoda's concern of how Toyota have lost its way.
Then again, this is another classic example of the bigger you are the harder you fall. Scroll through the NHTSA ODI website, there are many more equally serious safety issues involving other Japanese brands that are currently being investigated, but the media specifically choose to highlight on Toyota related defects.
Related link :
Largest Safety Recall Ever for Toyota - prompted after 4 deaths in a Lexus ES crash
Recall on China Market Toyota Camry - Defective Brakes
0 comments:
Post a Comment