Is Toyota really to blame for the deaths of 45 people with their cars?

Probably not. It is far more likely that driver error is to blame.

I would not think so, fact is Toyota has known about the problems for 5 to 7 years and ignored them to make there company bigger!

Now the grouth has back fired on them!

Nah…Toyota has a track record of pretending their cars are perfect and this is just another example of their wishful thinking.

No more than car companies that didn’t include airbags.

Totally true @Cruiser ; like the hybrid with an 8 horse electric motor and the gas engine that shuts off a dozen times a day producing more emissions than a 1946 chevy.

I cannot imagine this being sabotage. I am certain it is a manufacturer’s error.

@Arisztid you never know lol

I don’t think there was sabotage.

@Cruiser It is true that Toyota has been great at marketing their product. They have convinced people they are green, because of the Prius, but they have plenty of cars that get lower gas mileage than their American competitors when comparing same class cars. But, they really have been fantastic at reliability over the years. Most Japanese cars have been way better than American cars. I have owned 1 Honda, 1 Acura, 2 Porsche’s, 1 Dodge, 2 Chevy, 1 Nissan, 1 Audi, 1 Saab, and 2 Mazdas all bought new. Also, a Nissan, Honda and Porsche used. I have never had a problem with my Japanese cars that were bought new, nothing. The used ones by year 10 started to break down. One of our American cars had no problems. Every other car had something go wrong. Not necessarily a major engine problem, but something that had to be fixed. There is no getting around that the Japanese cared more about giving a quality product for many years.

I briefly knew someone who had worked for a Japanese company and she said the pressure on the employees to give perfect service was unbelievable (it was a service business, can’t remember what). She did not like the pressure, but there was no getting around that the Japanese do care about reputation and doing things right.

The CEO of Toyota was on Larry King and he took full responsibilty. He said his engineers are not able to replicate what is going wrong, although they have developed a fail safe system in the event something does go wrong, that is what the recall is, and he admitted that growing the company quickly may have caused HR mistakes. He also agreed with Larry that focus on profits may have taken their eye off of what should have been most important. Lastly, he regretted not having listened to the customer when issues first started coming up. I don’t think an American CEO would have said all of that.

That’s over a 10 year span.

Ford, Chevy and GMC could’ve easily topped that number.
I’m pretty sure there have been more than a few rollover deaths from the behemoth American SUV’s in the past decade.

Also you can never rule out pilot error entirely.
Toyota is doing their best to fix a manufacturing problem and desperate US automakers are quick to propagandize the event, making it out to be worse than it is.

You better believe they’re going to spin that to gain some market share.
The better thing for US automakers to do is build more cars and trucks people want.
Toyota will survive.

@Captain_Fantasy I thought that too. There are always things that might go wrong, and auto manufacturers wait to watch statistics mount, before they address it. Not necessarily because they don’t care, but if it happens once in 3 years, it might be that car had a defect, and that car only. Maybe Toyota was slow to respond to complaints, I don’t know, I don’t know what the industry standard or requirements are. But, I would be very curious to know what other car manufacturers do, and if Toyota was more negligent than any other auto manufacturer would have been in the same situation.

No, the blame lies squarely with automotive finance companies. It isn’t the car that kills, it is the clerk who loaned the driver the purchase funds.

Very unlikely.

More likely it is a combination of things. Car design, part manufacturing and driver error. Some cars have a high tech looking engine start-stop button. You push it to turn on the ignition and hold it three to four seconds to turn the ignition off. In a panic situation some people tend to push that button repeatedly like an elevator call button and the engine does not shut off. It is a stupid idea. Three to four seconds must feel like forever when the pedal is on the floor
Don’t tap the power button.

Anything possible, but I doubt it…. frankly I doubt it was even the fault of the engine management computers, must people cant drive for shit!