Quality Weenie

Toyota Blames Owners For Defective Engines

If you haven't guessed by now that Toyota is very good at keeping things quite and out of the media here is another chance to think that.

Jeff Meckstroth, a New Orleans stockbroker, bought a Lexus RX300 in late 1998 because of the luxury brand's reputation for quality.

Two years later, Meckstroth's opinion of Lexus, and its owner Toyota Motor Corp., changed when the engine in his car came to a clunking halt and the automaker blamed him for the problem.

(emphasis mine)

Just goes to show Toyota is just like any other car company, blame the owner and refuse to pay to fix it.

Meckstroth's long-running legal battle with Toyota, which grew into a class action over oil sludge damage, is expected to come to an end in early February.

Toyota Motor Sales USA, the U.S. sales arm of Japan-based Toyota, and lawyers representing car owners have reached an agreement that would cover engine repairs and incidental damages caused by oil sludge for up to eight years after the purchase of certain vehicles.

If Toyota is willing to pay for the damages must mean there IS something wrong.

The number of customer problems is not known, but the pool of covered vehicles is estimated to be between 3 million and 4 million, based on sales figures. Notices have been sent to about 7.5 million original and secondary owners of the vehicles, according to plaintiffs' lawyers.

3 - 4 MILLION ESTIMATED

And nothing in the paper until now, a little blurb within the Automotive section in the newspaper.

Oh and Toyota knows how many, they are just unwilling to let that number out.

Maintaining its reputation for quality is a top concern, said Toyota spokesman Xavier Dominicis. Toyota already has been working with customers to remedy the issue, he said.

Blamming the customer is a good way to keep that reputation for quality shiney.

Toyota, without admitting a defect to the engines, acknowledges that some owners who changed their oil regularly experienced sludge problems.

(emphasis mine)

As I stated in the beginning, Toyota is very good about keeping problems hiden and out of the media.

Posted by Quality Weenie at January 18, 2007 09:31 AM | TrackBack