To step back from a call to see what the payback facts.
First, when the time for quality control are clear distance, Toyota will have soon after the reports of unexpected acceleration starts rolling in. They are not. In the first place back in October 2009, she recalled, and accused of Floor Mats. Then, in January 2010, she recalled, and accused the throttle mechanism. If you start with the assumption that the mechanism is flawed CTS, you can blame. But I suspect that if we were told the meeting that Denso is the problem, we could not find fault with it. This is a Rorschach test, with spare parts. Even now some cases and historical review shows that none of them is the real problem, and said that the problem could be in software. Of course, all three be true, these reasons are not mutually exclusive.
So the source of the problem is not easy to find, even if Toyota is aware of the problem. The opening is during development, if they do not know about the problem and not looking for the source, would be very unlikely.
So, how likely it is that Toyota could learn about the problems during development? At this point the media is Toyota owners fear that they would take control of their cars will lose at some point. The human mind is wired for 150-person Community. So if you hear something bad happened to someone else, he concludes that "I'm next." Truth: over 5400000 cars were recalled for a problem that is about 2000 times reported. Even assuming that the problem was about ten times each time they are reported, we have something that happens in one of every 250 cars in an accident which results in perhaps one of every 5000 vehicle.
Unfortunately, Mr. Nader, but something that occurs in one of every 250 cars, and only if we assume that 90% of the cases reported, no sign of a common goal of quality.
For this rare problem, you need a few hundred cars to test, perhaps several thousand cars. Well, these days, many car manufacturers build fewer physical prototypes than before. Widely used for testing encountered in the real world takes place in computer simulations. I doubt anyone still based on even one hundred pre-production "alpha" prototypes. Dozens, perhaps. And for all we know some or even most of the prototypes may have Denso parts.
Of course some parts are more critical than others, and they should be investigated more thoroughly. 1980 warned the collapse of the Audi, a car manufacturer needs to check a component, which may very well lead to unintended acceleration. When two components are used, then both should be tested. And that's not enough for the prototype parts manufactured with production tooling test tested. Finally, if something is unlikely to do engineering, but the dealer or the owner can not be done by installing incorrect Floor Mats-test, which even then.
Undoubtedly, every automaker is also to some extent. Can anyone more than Toyota? Without the benefit of post we expect Toyota to have more tests done than it did? I personally have no idea. I strongly suspect that even the overall test system can not manage to find a problem with the pedal assembly, and virtually every other automaker could be completed by Toyota, where it is now.
In Floor Mats, on the other hand, one of those things, engineers can not be considered because they often assume that the vehicle is used as intended, and that operator error is not their problem. We are used to this by the Germans. Obviously affects the Japanese and American engineers, as well.
Moving on ... once production starts a few hundred "pilot" cars are paid to employees to drive and note any problems. This leads to the third piece of the puzzle: how much time the car must be tested before a problem occurs. This is clearly isn't 'a problem that occurs when the car is driven, or even during the first 10,000 miles.
During development, only a few prototypes to move more than a couple of one thousand miles. And almost nobody in the establishment of experimental auto accumulate more than a few one thousand miles before being sold to dealers as "executive demonstrations." Compressed development schedules involved. Led by Toyota, automakers spend a few months to develop a car than they used to. That means less time to be a problem during the prototype testing.
Put all the pieces together and every problem that a small percentage of the car reached after these cars are on track for a while probably not be detected during development of the car.
Of course, there still smoking gun: it may be that someone has noticed this problem some acceleration in Toyota, and has decided not to conduct or attempted to chase and were blocked by other individuals within the company. But still no hint.
Moving product and Toyota was still guilty. Pedal recall includes one five years old model, the 2005 Avalon. Some of the reported cases in 2005 Camrys (although not included in the pedal Recall). Even if a problem that a small percentage of these cars become not arise during development, clearly began appearing once in a hundred thousand cars were in the hands of customers. Dealers should be aware of numerous cases of unintended acceleration in 2007 or 2008, maybe even in 2005.
Which system has to the owners of Toyota vehicles to be tested for learning problems and quickly develop engineering solutions for them? Judging from the reactions of True Delta car reliability survey, Toyota has a generally good job of identifying and fixing common problems in the beginning of the model run. Which is why Toyota generally continue to perform well in reliability surveys. Common problems are caught and fixed. If Toyota has not lost control of the quality.
But the system is not in this particular case, that is not connected to a common problem. Why? Is there a system of Toyota is much less attention to the rare problems, even if they can cause fatal accidents? Is there a way cars less close after the first year or two of ownership? Each of these may be a factor. But if someone asks these questions?
These are questions not only for Toyota. All manufacturers have a feature of the current Toyota as a wake-up call for their use of the rare but potentially fatal, owners of cars have problems, a thorough investigation into these problems and then fixing them to improve.
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