Avoidable Contact #36: The culture wars gave Toyota a license to kill.
Are Toyotas really accelerating without warning? It’s hard to say, since it’s been years since I saw any Toyota besides a Tundra even keep up with the normal flow of traffic. The Camry is the official car of the left-lane hog, the chosen transport of that woman ahead of you who ABS-locks her brakes for a yellow light and then won’t enter the intersection for a left on green. By and large, Toyotas are characterless cars purchased by fearful, fretting nebbishes. Twenty years ago, Toyota ads screamed “OH WHAT A FEELING!” but today’s Toyota ads are naked appeals to terror of the unknown. Do you clutch your organic-fiber blanket in bed at night and roll around shaking, dreading the day when your car requires service or — gasp! — maintenance? Toyota has the car for you. Corolla! It’s for cowards! Oh what a feeling!
If the average Toyota buyer is afraid of her own shadow and worries about automotive catastrophe constantly, surely the prospect of UNINTENDED ACCELERATION RIGHT INTO A FLAMING WALL OF DEATH should be enough to keep every Camry in the United States off the road, right? Well, that would certainly be the case, except for one little thing: there is a force that motivates the average Toyota fan or purchase far more than fear, and that force is pure, blinding hatred.
Some of us have seen this movie before. When General Motors introduced the “import-fighting” X-body in late 1979, the car seemed to have it all. The Chevrolet Citation and its platform mates had spectacular packaging; the five-door X-body is approximately the same length and width as the Prius, is significantly shorter, and has greater passenger volume. This, from a car developed in the mid-Seventies. Weight was well under control: the X-bodies all weigh under 2500 pounds and some are as light as 2250. Fuel economy was stellar: adjusted for modern ratings, the four-cylinder X could make 31mpg on the freeway, with a four-speed, direct-drive-fourth-gear transmission. I would even argue that the X was a handsome car, particularly in two-door hatch form.
X-body sales were well over the three-quarter-million mark in 1980. It seemed General Motors had finally found the lever with which to move the compact-car world. Unfortunately, the X-body had a serious safety problem. The rear brakes locked-up under the slightest provocation, causing the cars to loop out of control in normal driving conditions. GM knew it was a problem before the cars entered production but chose to not address the issue, something which later on cost them a lot of money in jury awards and federal fines.
People died in X-car collisions. Quite a few people died in them as a result of the brake defect; we’ll never know how many because thirty years ago crash data was often uncollected, particularly in rural areas. After a toe-in-the-water 240,000-car recall, the Feds eventually ordered GM to recall over a million cars to address the issue. A series of lawsuits were resolved in GM’s favor by a Reagan-era government. I’m copying the Center for Auto Safety’s paragraph on the decision verbatim here for the reader’s enlightenment; while I am no fan of governmental interference, I think this was a case where a little more of it might have been warranted.
On April 14, 1987, nearly four years after suit was filed and over a year after trial ended, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas P. Jackson issued his decision, ruling for GM on all counts before the court. No recall would be ordered because the government had failed to define precisely what was wrong with X-car brakes. The thousands of complaints from X-car owners were dismissed as “anecdotal”; the internal memos in which GM’s own experts attacked the car’s brake performance were merely evidence “that brake engineers have yet to devise the infallible braking system.” In his opinion Jackson chided the government for coming “into court with nothing more, essentially, than a reasonable suspicion, without the evidence to prove it.”
Once the public found out about the X-car brake problems, the Citation, Phoenix, Omega, and Skylark became unsaleable showroom filler, eventually piling up to the point that GM had to bury them all in the same desert where Atari buried over one million “E.T.” game cartridges for the VCS system. Oh, who am I kidding? People still bought the X-cars. The Honda Accord was a better mousetrap, and it didn’t kill people by putting them backwards into lampposts, but Honda couldn’t dream of selling their little car in the kind of volumes enjoyed by the Chevrolet Citation right up to the bitter end. Why?
The answer is simple. The Accord was “Jap crap” and the Citation was a decent American car, built by good old General Motors. It seems hard to believe today, but thirty years ago people actually gave a damn about their neighbor having a job, and they really gave a damn about purchasing an American-made product. To the average American of the year 1981, today’s consumerbots and their blithe willingness to pay thousands of dollars for products made in China by people earning a dollar an hour and killing themselves to avoid going back to work would be all but incomprehensible. Therefore, they bought Citations over Accords, even though they were risking their lives by doing so. Risking your life to guarantee your neighbor a job, even if your “neighbor” was hundreds or thousands of miles away! Hard to believe, eh?
General Motors had a lot of goodwill with people back then, but in the years that followed they cheerfully burned it all to the ground. By the year 2000, the GM badge was synonymous with “crap” for most Americans. Too many bad products, too much corporate indifference, not enough quality. The reasons are too numerous to detail here.
The Citation buyer of 1980 probably didn’t think of himself as a “Citation man”. He would have described himself as a former Marine, a union laborer, an economics professor, or a dancer for the Chippendales. Again, it’s hard to believe, but people in this country used to identify themselves primarily on career, family affiliation, or community standing. The past thirty years have seen many of the concepts regarding “community”, family, and career utterly implode in the United States and elsewhere. (The book Bowling Alone was an early discussion of this change.) We’re now “product people”. The average twentysomething is likely to be more passionate about his membership in E46fanatics.com or NAGTROC than he would be about his status as an American or a “cube monkey”, and he will tell you that he is an Apple owner before he tells you that he is a Christian or an agnostic.
This change from community to product affiliation has had some interesting effects on how we view people who purchase products different from our own choices. I’d like to excerpt a few passages from a recent Boston Globe article about the Prius. Some are from the author, others are from the commenters on the online edition. It may not be immediately apparent which is which:
“Prius, the brilliantly engineered hybrid that created a popular car category the dunderheads in Detroit are still trying to match.”
“…the fools who invested your tax dollars in a failed auto company called General Motors”
“(GM is)… a company that paid workers (lavishly) not to work, and cranked out gas-guzzling SUVs while the planet was on fire”
“Detroit’s also-ran car companies are fanning the anti-Toyota flames in the media”
“I bought a Prius not only because it’s a hybrid car but a car made in Japan… If Toyota decides to make Prius in the US, I think my next car will be either Honda Insight or Nissan Leaf.”
Of those five comments, the first four were actually part of the Globe article. Note the venom, the personal anger, but also note that these rather personal and angry comments were published by a paper of record in the United States. The author is a Prius owner, but he doesn’t talk about the virtues of the Prius. Rather, he talks about how horrible Toyota’s “enemies” are. A quick wallow through Internet commentary by Toyota owners shows that the talking points of Toyota ownership are reducible to just two, summarized below:
- Toyota owners think the cars are pretty reliable. When Toyotas break, it’s probably the fault of the owners.
- American manufacturers are planet-killing murder corporations headed by thieves and secretly owned by BP. They are also chock-full of fat, lazy, blue-collar people who drink crappy beer, own televisions, believe in Jesus, faint in church, own JetSkis, screw their cousins, shop at Wal-Mart, scratch their genitals in public, divide their leisure time equally between frothing hysteria regarding NASCAR and the WWE, jack their trucks up ten feet off the ground only to have their morbidly obese asses sag them back down to street height, vote for Bush, deny global warming, and wear mesh-backed baseball caps without any sense of irony whatsoever.
Ownership of a Toyota isn’t just a choice to buy a relatively cheap and usually reliable automobile; it’s a salvo in the Kulturkampf, that great culture war that has come to define American politics and life. Honda and Nissan owners tend to talk about how great their cars are, but Toyota owners tend to talk about how lousy American cars are. They are buying the cars not because of what they are, but because of what they are not.
And thus we see why it simply doesn’t matter how many people are killed by unintended acceleration, real or imagined. It doesn’t matter how many Tundras rust out, how many Tacomas break in half, how many MR2s ingest their intake manifolds and blow up, or how many $75,000 Lexus sedans either stall for no reason or adjust their steering wheels ninety degrees out of whack during an auto-parking maneuver. Speaking personally, I think the average Toyota is a reliable car, at least as reliable as the equivalent Ford or Honda, but that’s irrelevant. Once passion and hatred enter the equation, nothing else matters but those emotions.
For many Toyota buyers, coming back to the domestic fold, or even choosing an alternative Japanese car, would be an admission of personal defeat. The Citation buyer in 1982 wanted to support America; the Camry buyer in 2010 needs to support his own ego, his own choices, his own self-image. I’m willing to bet that many of the episodes of unintended acceleration in Toyotas are never reported, for the same reason that new iPad owners can become rather angry when you question their purchase.
It’s all quite laughable, actually. I feel very superior to Toyota owners, primarily because I’m a Porsche owner. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to sacrifice a fatted calf to the ghost of Ferdinand Porsche in hopes that my Boxster doesn’t lunch its engine at Monday’s track event…
Is the Boston Globe writer related to that insufferable blowhard from the San Francisco Chronicle?
Yeah, yeah … and my 2006 Solstice didn't get lemoned-out within 12 months of my 2009 Malibu hybrid before I jumped ship to the Routan?
Faith in GM = 0.
So you bought what is, for all intents and purposes a Chrysler?
*slow-clap*
In fairness, the labels of domestic and import have been blurred in a big way since '82. Toyotas, Hondas and BMWs are made in the USA, while Chevies, Fords and Dodges are made north and south of our borders. Obviously, having a production facility isn't the same as having a full corporate enterprise, but the point is it's nowhere near as black and white as before.
Further blurring the lines is the fact that many hard-core right-wingers now vilify Detroit for its unions and bailouts. My local Sean Hannity fan drives an Avalon.
Toyota made the commercially wise move of building cars for The Consumer Masses. The Consumer Masses don't give a crap about cars, aside from perceived safety, efficiency, ease-of-ownership and possibly resale value…just like any other appliance. Unfortunately, when you make those people your customers, any violation of their trust will result in instant fear-driven hysteria.
As automotive enthusiasts, we love to see the pain inflicted on the company that makes cars for people who hate cars. They twisted the knife with every chunk of market share they chipped away, proving quarter after quarter that to be a commercially successful auto maker, you need to abandon interestingness, soul and coolness for safety, reliability and "niceness".
The irony of seeing them undone by this strategy, at the hands of consumers apparently unable to shift into neutral, turn off a car or stand on a single pedal for 35 seconds is delicious to those of us who love cars that are more interesting than "nice".
@Jo Borras, I hope you have more faith in Chrysler than you do in GM, because you still haven’t escaped Detroit. You do realize that the WV Routan is just a rebadged Dodge Caravan/Chrysler Town & Country, right?
This. Article. Is. AWESOME!
Jo Barras – I hope your zero faith in GM doesn't equate to zero faith in domestics. The VW Routan is just my dad's Chrysler Town & Country with a slightly fancier badge. Having said that, I think the T&C is a halfway decent vehicle.
My own experience and that of my family's don't reflect what your talking about here. I've owned two American cars – a '97 Cavalier and a dismal '88 Dodge Shadow – and two Toyotas – a '99 Camry and a '10 Scion TC. By 110K miles and barely 10 years of ownership and careful care, the Cavalier's ac was shot, the dash had cracked, the coolant was always leaking, I had replaced three factory radios, the transmission was slipping, the paint was peeling, I had replaced all of the fuel injectors because they were leaking, dozens of interior details were falling apart, cracked, or had broken completely. The car had numerous electrical system demons from the first year that the dealership either couldn't or wouldn't fix, even after bringing it in with less than 5K miles on it probably 10x the first year. The engine was solid but the rest of the car was ready to be crushed into a cube by the time I sold it at 125K miles. Don't even get me started about the Dodge – that car was done at probably 95K miles and the worst thing on four wheels I've ever driven.
The Camry was virtually maintenance free until nearly 125K, and even then there were no problems at all with the transmission, the engine, etc. 11 years after buying it it still looked good and drove well, and while being rather bland, did it's job pretty well. My family has owned 6 Toyotas and have driven them with very few problems.
And Jack, it's unfair to compare even the higher end Toyotas or Lexuses (Lexi?) to your high end Porsche(s). Of course a guy who can afford a 60K+ car is going to look down a bit on cars that can be had for 18K new, and of course a 911 or whatever is going to a dramatically better car than a Corolla.
Don't forget though that the people buying Camry's uses for and needs from a car are totally different from your own. To put it in terms we'll understand but probably no one else here will, someone who buys a hi tensile steel GT Performer isn't the same guy who buys a Hoffman Condor or a Standard STA.
If I had a choice between a '99 Camry or a '99 Malibu or Taurus, I would choose the Camry, no contest. In 1999, Toyota was near the top of its game while the domestic manufacturers still had serious quality issues. If my choices were 2009 Camry/Malibu/Fusion, however, Camry would not be my top choice because it's close to undrivable: the steering wheel has about 15 degrees of slack, the body rolls, yaws, and pitches at the slightest curve, the brakes don't engage until the pedal is pressed 50% in, and the throttle is either fully open or fully closed. I can understand that the average Camry buyer wants a smooth, comfortable ride, but who wants steering slack, squishy brakes, and ridiculous throttle tip-in?
I recently sold my 2005 Camry (good riddance!) and bought a 1987 Mercedes 300SDL, and I still look down on most Toyota owners, despite having been one of them, and despite my car being worth only ~$7000.
Jack, the people you describe certainly exist. On the other hand, I think most of the people I know who buy the appliance-line cars from 'yota and Honda do so because simply these cars still have the _reputation_ of being reliable, unbreakable, a dependable transportation. This reputation was definitely built by the older models – maybe not valid anymore for the newest ones? Regardless, think about it that way – if you are not a car enthusiast and get an appliance car, you _will_ fondly remember it if it carries you through everything in life – childhood, college, dates, work, your moves, bad weather, vacation, fun, sad days, road trips, everything. You will remember it and trust the brand that did not let you down. With something as long-lived as a car, especially a Japanese live-forever one, it is simply hard to erase the bad memories of an epoch of unreliable Detroit cars and the fond experience of a never-break-down, ask-for-nothing, bail-me-out-anytime, good-natured donkey from Nippon.
I bought a 93 Corolla, Maroon, 1.6L, 3 spd auto 7 years ago, as what I then thought would be a short-term reliable transporter. It now has 175 Kmiles, has since become my daily driver, road trip vehicle, skiing vehicle, surf shuttle, holds a 9 ft surfboard trunk to dash and a sports arts team of 4, gets up to 33 mpg, has cold AC, never overheats, was driven hard, needed some new drivetrain parts, is lovingly maintained.
A year ago, I got into racing. The 'rolla became my first autoX and HPDE car, with a white stripe, pirate flag and a set of Falken Azenis on Miata wheels that I got for a case of beers. It runs mid-pack among Miatas, beats them in the rain. With good winter tires, it placed 3rd in a snow rallycross at a winter school, beating all students and all but two instructors, all in WRXes and Quattros. It held its own in the HPDE Novice groups, passed its share of Porsches, an F430, and chased down an Elise. I now have a Civic SI racecar that I run in SCCA showroom stock, and could easily afford a newer street car, but I still keep, maintain and love my 'rolla, drive it daily, enjoy its light, nimble, precise, smooth handling and the way just everything works so… harmonic and balanced, without any electronic nannies. Toyota just did everything right with that car. It was designed as the world car, and you can choose what you want it to be – gas saver, beater, utility, or fun car, it even can be fun for a sporty driver (confirmed by a champion autocrosser who inherited one from his grandma) – it will not be top of the line in any of those disciplines, but it somehow can do it all. It has become a friend.
Jack-
What MR2s are known for "ingesting their intake manifolds"? As an owner and enthusiast, I'm curious
More importantly and to the point.. I think that there is a large difference between new Toyota owners and old Toyota owners. 80s/90s Toyotas are probably the best-built cars the world has ever seen and will likely ever see again… Sad truth, as even Toyota now tends to build crap that isn't really built to last.
Too many people buy new Toyotas because of the old 80s/90s Toyota reputation, methinks.
I do appreciate the fact that your tongue is planted firmly in-cheeck, by the way.
It's apparently the pre-cats, not the intake manifold, that makes Spyder engines fail prior to 2003. I stand corrected!
Oh yes.. THAT!
It's Walmart, one word, no hyphen.
My parents have a slightly different view of GM. It's a company that, in collusion with the government, screws you out of a half-million dollars in bonds. Our last four cars have been a Toyota, two Nissans, and a Hyundai.
Great article. The Toyota has been simply an appliance to me, purchased by those that savour milk toast.
The fact that anyone was injured by a run away Toyota is clear evidence that we need federally mandated Driver training in this country.
"In case of wild acceleration, shift into neutral and stand on the brake."
"For situations requiring common sense, please close your eyes and cry to mama."
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