Toyota Stops Selling Cars

Okay, so let me give you the full back story here; a while back the gas pedal in people’s Toyotas started sticking to the floor, causing the car to wildly and uncontrollably accelerate. This led to a number of accidents, a few tragic deaths, and countless “holy shit! What the fuck is happening! Jesus, Buddha, Allah save me!” moments behind the wheel. So in November Toyota concluded that the problem was that the pedals were getting stuck underneath the floor-mats and they recalled 4.2 million cars and replaced their floor-mats.

Well, the problem didn’t stop. Cars kept accelerating, people kept shitting their pants, and Toyota had to do something about it. So about a week back Toyota instituted another recall, 2.3 million this time. Now here’s the kicker, Toyota has no idea what the hell is wrong with these cars, none. They just know the accelerator sticks, no reason why, no known way to fix it, it just happens.

Now Toyota has decided that the best course of action would be to simply stop selling cars, that’s right, in a world where GM or Chrysler has a smaller share of the automotive market than I do (my 1991 Honda Prelude is still for sale by the way) Toyota, the world’s largest car company, is just going to stop selling 8 of its cars, including its most popular models, the Camry and the Corolla. I remember thinking that the initial recall would be really damaging, but I never saw this coming.

Now, I am an avid Honda guy, so Toyota is kind of the Boston Celtics to my Los Angeles Lakers, but I have to say I feel bad for the company. The way this whole thing came about it’s kind of like the perfect storm to screw over Toyota for no apparent reason. It’s almost an act of God. The car’s are still good, there is nothing wrong with them, they still have that unshakable Toyota quality and reliability, but for some reason one of the most simple mechanisms on them just doesn’t work correctly, and no one can figure out what the hell why. But as a result, Toyota’s image will probably take a hit, Toyota sales will obviously take a hit, and customer satisfaction will probably take one too. Now, Toyota’s brand and image is big enough and has been established for long enough that I don’t think this will do serious long term damage, but you have to admit, this sure blows for them.

And imagine how the dealerships are going to take it; someone walks into their showroom in this terrible economy and actually wants to buy a new car, and you have to tell them “sorry, you and your gigantic check are going to have to go home, we don’t sell cars anymore.”

I’m just really interested to see what the hell the issue could be, I mean, it should be simple to diagnose, but it’s got all of Toyota stumped, and those guys have some really smart engineers. My guess is magic; it would make as much sense as anything else at this point. Either way they better hope they find out what it is, and find out soon.