Toyota Motor Sales will replace an oil hose in about 933,800 vehicles in the United States because of the risk of a leak that could damage, the automaker confirmed to Reuters on Monday.
It was the latest blow to its quality image, which is suffering from ongoing recalls, safety investigations on more than 10 million vehicles globally.
Toyota’s quality control head, Shinichi Sasaki, and North American President Yoshimi Inaba are scheduled to appear before a Senate committee on tomorrow for a third hearing on its and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s handling of complaints and 34 alleged deaths involving sudden or uncontrolled acceleration.
In the defective oil hose case, Camry, Avalon, Rav4 and Lexus vehicles with V6 engines are affected. An engine oil hose may leak Toyota said in a bulletin sent to U.S. dealers and obtained by Reuters on Monday.
Toyota says t has taken this step in the interest of customer satisfaction – informing owners that Toyota and Lexus dealers will modify their vehicle prior to them experiencing the condition.
This is actually the expansion of two previous service actions. For phase three revealed today, there are approximately 128,800 Avalon (2007 – 2009 model year) and 89,000 RAV4 V6 (2007 – 2009 model year) vehicles involved in the United States.
Last year, Toyota also announced phases one and two of this service action on approximately 342,200 Toyota Avalon (model year 2005 – 2006), Camry (2007 – early 2010) and RAV4 V6 (2006 model year), and 374,000 Lexus ES 350 (model year 2007-2008) and RX 350 (model year 2007-2009) vehicles.
Owners of the involved vehicles will receive a notification by first class mail.
Toyota dealers will replace the VVT-i oil hose with a newly designed one at no charge to the customer. The repair will take approximately one hour. However, Toyota says depending upon the dealer’s work schedule, it may be necessary to make the vehicle available for a longer period of time.
This Limited Service Campaign will be offered until March 31, 2013.
It seems to me that we are nearing the time when Toyota quality should be analzed in terms of perception vs reality. And, for that matter, how much does the intense, compassionate, almost-blind loyalty makes the owner oblivious to real issues. To wit, I remember the owner panels when Mercedes owners talked of absolutely zero problems with their vehicles until the clever moderator found a way to bring out the real/actual experiences.
Lee: Much depends on how long the negative press lasts, and more importantly how existing and potential customers rate Toyota’s responses. Perception will be reality here.
Short term, market share is down almost 3 percentage points – see the February sales story I wrote.
Toyota has been a quality leader in the U.S. for decades; since J.D. Power started measuring the entire industry in the mid-1980s; and for as long as I remember on Consumer Reports. Yes, recently Toyota has had quality problems, perhaps regression to the mean for a large company, but they also have a long history of taking care of customers with a combination of good warranties, owner satisfaction programs for issue out of warranty, and of course, a low total cost of ownership based on transaction price and trade-in price.
Toyota went to longer warranties before the Detroit Three and still has a diverse product lineup and though wounded, the company has the financial ability to start a marketing war with more depth and greater length then the one just announced, which has low lease rates, 0% financing and two years of free maintenance for buyers with a Toyota product in the household. This runs through April 5.
Then, who knows? As you know from your Ford Motor experience, Toyota will be monitoring sales daily, and will be ready to modify as needed come the Spring selling season.
And don’t forget the profitable and large dealers. They will be a positive factor as well. – KZ, editor