By far, the biggest story in the automotive industry in the last six months has been Toyota’s decision to halt sales of eight of its models, and announce recalls on the millions of vehicles currently on the road. You don’t need to read automotive blogs to know that Toyota has a reputation for value, quality, and above all, reliability. So the disaster caused by sticking accelerator pedals cannot be underestimated.

Ford and GM (as well as a few other automakers – Hyundai for one) have jumped on this as a chance to claim some sales. A chance for GM and Ford to “kick ‘em while they’re down” so to speak. Hey, it’s a competitive industry, now more than ever.

But for those who think Toyota’s massive stop-sale and recall are a sign of weakness and embarrasment, consider this: Both Ford and General Motors have had far worse mechanical defects, also resulting in deaths, but they handled it a bit differently – they covered them up. Then, when they couldn’t cover them up any longer, they simply paid people off and continued manufacturing the same deadly defect.

In Ford’s case, it was the Ford Pinto. The Pinto’s rear mounted fuel tank had a tendency to explode on impact, even if that impact was a relatively low-speed rear-end collision. In that famous case, lawyers at Ford and the government decided that the cost of one life was $1 million, and that’s what they paid out for each person killed in an exploding Pinto. Then they continued building and selling them as-is until the product line was discontinued.

GM had a similiar problem with Chevrolet trucks from 1973 to 1989. Their side-mounted fuel tanks also had a tendency to explode on low-speed crashes. GM’s own testing in the initial model year uncovered the issue, yet they continued to make them, virtually unchanged, for another 16 years. GM learned that it would cost $2.20 cents per vehicle to fix, and concluded that it was not cost-effective to implement. They covered it up as long as possible, even as test after test showed the defect in dramatic fashion.

So for each company to try and capitalize on Toyota’s defect is simply hypocritical, especially as Toyota has taken the very difficult but proper action of stopping sales and fixing the issue.

Consumers should keep this in mind: Cars are machines, and machines will always have defects; how will your car’s manufacturer react when their product poses a risk to you?

Filed under:
Ford, General Motors, Toyota by Brian