Toyota recall update: 1.7 million cars and counting

Just as champion golfer Tiger Woods can't avoid the constant spotlight on his sex scandal, Japanese car maker Toyota is suffering a similar fate with its recall crisis.

Despite finally taking drastic action to rectify more than eight million potentially faulty cars in North America and Europe -- and despite numerous public apologies and press conferences -- Toyota's recall mess keeps coming back to haunt the brand, even in far away in Australia, where only one model and 2300 cars have been recalled.

Such is Toyota Australia's concern, the maker is attempting to, in its words, "draw a line in the sand" to try to deal with the issue once and for all, so the recall fiasco doesn't continue to take the spotlight away from Toyota's upcoming model launches.

When the hybrid Camry was released in March -- the first Australian-made petrol-electric car -- it was overshadowed by questions about (and subsequent reporting on) the international recall crisis.

Toyota Australia used the recent opening of its new flagship dealership in Adelaide (pictured) to update the media today (Tuesday April 13) on the global recall and what other changes have occurred behind the scenes.

Toyota Australia senior executive director of sales and marketing, David Buttner, told the small gathering that 1.7 mllion cars of the more than eight million due to be recalled in North America have already had their recall work completed -- and US dealerships were working through the vehicles at a rate of 50,000 a day.

In the UK, 120,000 cars have had their recall work completed in just six weeks.

The recall was limited to the latest model Toyota Prius in Australia. Last month, Toyota Australia recalled 2300 new generation Prius models because of two customer complaints about brake pedal feel. In an unprecedented move, every customer was contacted directly.

"Dealer principals rang each customer personally, and they were invited to bring the car in or have the recall work done at their home or office," Buttner said. "We then rang every customer after the work was carried out."

He said contrary to popular belief, the personal service didn't "alarm" Prius customers.

"Prius customers are typically forward-thinking and early-adopters of technology and understand what we're doing and why we're doing this. Happy customers are the best advocates for any brand."

Buttner also used the briefing to point out some facts in the wake of some "emotional" reporting.

"Without diminishing the seriousness of any recall, it is worth putting the Toyota recall into perspective," he said. "It's always important to maintain perspective because... rather than rational and logical analysis, sometimes the emotion can take over and the facts can get lost in the story."

He went on to say that the Toyota, Lexus and Scion brands combined have sold 21 million cars in the past nine and a half years.

"In that time, US authorities have received about 3300 complaints of unintended acceleration. That represents 0.015 per cent of customers who have complained, or looked at another way, 99.985 per cent didn't report such a problem."

He also said that despite the beating Toyota's image has taken in recent months, the head of the National Highway Transport Safety Authority in the US, David Strickland, told congress recently that the number and seriousness of Toyota's recalls over the years were "unremarkable".

Buttner also pointed out that 40 million vehicles have been sold with the same Electronic Throttle Control System and the company is very confident the system is not the cause of the unintended acceleration.

"Toyota engineers have comprehensively tested the ETCS under normal and abnormal conditions, including electro-magnetic interference, and they never found a single case of unintended acceleration," he said.

After highlighting Toyota's strong sales in North America since the crisis, Buttner then pointed to the most recent JD Power quality and reliability survey, released in March, which showed Toyota vehicles had fewer problems than the industry average during the first three years of ownership.

The average faults are 155 faults per 100 vehicles compared to Toyota's rating of 128 faults per 100 vehicles. Toyota also had the top performing vehicles in four segments, more than any other maker, he said.

Buttner insisted that Toyota was not being complacent about the issue, even though he could not explain why it took Toyota USA so long to take action in the first place, despite receiving numerous complaints over the past few years.

"It would be wrong for me to speculate on why that happened because, quite simply, I wasn't there," he said. "I haven't spoken directly to my US colleagues about this. The honest answer is I don't know. But I'm as keen as everyone else is to find out what happened, so we can all learn from it."

Buttner said there were positives to come from the debacle.

"At least one positive outcome of being in the spotlight ... is that it's fair to say all Toyota cars will become safer in the future and be put under much greater scrutiny.

"The development and engineering processes were already rigorous, but they will certainly be stepped up many notches."

He reminded journalists of a recent quote from the global president of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, the grandson of the company's founder, Kiichiro Toyoda, who is leading a new global quality committee.

"Until now we judged whether something was good or bad, based on laws and rules. But a new rule must be added: customer perception."

He said Toyota Australia is represented by three senior executives on the new global quality committee, who would supplement Toyota Australia's one existing "respected voice" that is already based in Japan.

In the frank and lengthy discussion, Buttner also revealed that Toyota has been monitoring local and overseas media reports on the recall crisis twice daily -- at 7.30am and again at 4.30pm -- as well as tracking the public's perception of the brand through various consumer surveys.

When the full scale of the recall in North America and Europe was realised, Toyota Australia initially considered running an advertising campaign aimed at easing any fears among customers or potential customers -- even though the problems were with cars not sold here -- but dealer feedback said it was unnecessary.

"I rang 50 of our biggest dealers in one day and 99 per cent of them said to do nothing and that they would handle it and talk to customers directly.

"The fear was that such an advertising campaign could have made people more concerned than less concerned. We really were unsure what to do."

But, Toyota held off, and the brand's reputation has returned to where it was before the crisis, he said.

"The facts are that during the peak of media activity, there had been [a dip in the perception of the brand]. From about three week ago we started to see signs of recovery. And indeed by every measure now is back at the level it was at prior to the recall situation. And that was very important, because brand reputation is the most sacred thing you have."

From 2011 all Toyotas sold globally will be equipped with an accelerator override function. That is, when the brake and accelerator pedals are pressed at the same time, fuel is cut from the engine, therefore slowing the car. Some models in North America already have such a feature.