AMEN to that. (Gads, I just agreed with something ProudPony said! )

 

don't forget honda CRV's bursting into flames every time they go in for an oil change, thats a staple of these types of threads

 

Do I expect the news to report a problem with a Toyota... hmmm... what a question you pose... and this problem is "minor" to you... interesting.

Actually no, I don't.
It seems much more prudent to report on Ford voluntarilly replacing 198 control arms or GM also recalling 17,815 Buick Raniers, Chevrolet Trailblazers, GMC Envoys and Isuzu Ascenders from the 2005 model year because the windshield could fall out in a crash. Never seen THAT before. (Heaven forbid... it might even get scratched or cracked if it doesn't fall out.)
Those seem much more newsworthy than to report on Toyota replacing 1,270,000 sets of headlamp circuitry that affect people in 5 countries - not to mention that this is the largest recall ever for the company.

In another thread, I've already shown reports of people being KILLED by Toyota drive-by-wire controls failures, the company knows about it, acknowledges it, but they not only are not recalling the cars, they are not fixing the problem either. But best of all, NOT ONE SINGLE NEWS AGENCY WANTS TO RUN A STORY ON IT. Mustang gas tanks - everybody knows. C/K series fuel tanks - everybody knows. Crown Vic tanks may leak in a rear-end impact at 70 mph - everybody knows. Toyotas are killing people with runaway control systems - NOBODY knows about it. Toyotas are killing and injuring

I guess this is like the argument for smoking...
There's always the person that has smoked since they were 14 and lived to be 99 in perfect health. That DOES NOT mean that smoking is good for you. There are thousands dying from Emphisema and Lung Cancer every day accross the country, but we dwell on "the one guy that...".
Some people see it, some people don't.

I am stating solidly that it is MY OPINION that the domestic carmakers are headlined more often with bad news than the import brands are, despite the import brands having an equal to fair share of problems and failures requiring corrective action. I know what I see and hear on the TV, radio, newspapers, and rags... unless we are all exposed to the exact same media, it is doubtful we would all have the exact same take on it. BFD. :blah:

 

oh geeze, here we go again.

 

Ah, I see you're one of the unfortunate ones with selective hearing syndrome. This recall is affecting japan only, and it's a minor recall - headlights might turn off. Heck, even if this recall was happening to Holden of Australia on Holden vehicles in Australia only I'd be flat out shocked to see it covered on the nightly news.

That's why you shouldn't gauge 'media bias' by the coverage of this story. It doesn't affect the US and the only way its affecting the occasional japanese consumer is turning their lights off. Not exactly news worthy in either context.

 

As and FYI....the 11:00 am ABC news on my local AM radio station (WNIS) said that 70k-ish Scion TCs were being recalled. I believe it was something to do with the windshield, but I couldn't hear it that well, so didn't get the windshield.

And Proudpony...please don't take this as any sort of attack on you at all. I'm just expressing an opinion and throwing out a few things to support my opinions.

 

If you all get nothing else from this thread remember that smoking is very bad for you

 

they should have used reverse 911 to warn people about this threxx

 

Threxx, I agree that this recall may not make the news here, because it is mostly in Japan...but your "no big deal" opinion about headlights failing is pretty telling....so if I'm driving along at night and my headlights turn off by themselves, you don't see the potential for a major accident? Driver panic causing a major accident? It is unclear to me whether the lights can be instantly turned back on or not, but still this isn't like recalling GM SUVs because something might fall off the car during a major accident...duhhh....

 

funny thing is, there are probably dozens if not hundreds of recalls all over the planet on a yearly basis in countries which are not the united states, and yet very few if any of them are broadcast on the US national news.

 

Amen.

Hey Threxx...uhm yeah, I'd say having your headlights turn off without warning when you need them COULD be catastrophic. Care to tell me why you wouldn't agree?

Z28Wilson,
Naw...its really no big deal Just reconfirms the Toyota Fanboy status we got going on with him

Oh yeah...

(Sorry, almost forgot...)

 

"The company's biggest safety recall will involve right-hand-drive cars sold in Japan, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia and 69,848 sold in Australia."

It's more then just Japan. It does seem to be right hand drive cars only though.

Also, I wouldn't call headlights turning off minor, it could be quite dangerous at night. Had it happen in my WS.6 with bad replacement bulbs (both lowbeams went out) and it was NOT fun. Luckily my highbeams still worked so at least people could see me (and I could see the road). Also happened to my friend in his 68 Mustang, I had to play "spotter" and drive right in front of him the whole way home.

Chris

 

I knew you'd say that, and was only waiting how long it would take you, but don't credit yourself - news.google.com is hardly any indication of anything other than frequency of occurence of words.

Watch local television, check out cnn.com. First note the presence of the article on the main page, then read the tone of it (as in the spirit and not the letter). And even if this is changing, it does not mean it has always been that way. There are plenty of people here who witnessed it and perhaps still witness that. You may have arrived late and you may be ignorant of what happened in the past. Perhaps the next thing to argue is that Top Gear gives an unbiased review of american cars.

This shift of opinion was not due to what was posted by whom, but more so due to frequency of foreign recalls posted here and from which source. And even still I am not at the point where I'll claim the media bias is gone.

 

Well, I'm one of the people that thinks there is some inherent bias in the media (with respect to lots of things, not just Japanese automakers). However, since this recall affects the Japanese (and a few other non-US) markets, I would not use this story as evidence toward that point.

One telling thing in the original article was that the representative from Toyota flat out said that they are having some "big company syndrome" and that they are not immune to it. Goofs like this are more likely as a company adds more people (more chances to goof something up) and more product lines, plants, etc. Ask GM and Ford, who have been huge for decades...

One of my best friends from school works at the Toyota Technical Center in Ann Arbor (is a *****! ), Michigan. He is already seeing more and more "big company" behavior in his day to day job, and it bothers him. In fact, he recently told me one of his coworkers was pissed because he went to have the admin buy a few new report binders, and she declined. Evidently the director said no more of that stuff for a while; deal with what you have. Swimming in $10Billion/year profits and scrimping on binders... (little anecdote that struck me as funny)

Cliffs: yes I think there is some bias, no I don't think this is a great example of it (since it is a non US market issue - so far, anyway), and Toyota will likely find this occurring a little more often if they continue to grow...

 

Do I sense circle jerk going around?