Used Car News

The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
It would be too easy to adopt a gloating position like this when applied to Toyota’s current problems with recalls resulting from manufacturing defects. In reality, recalls are as common as a cold. This one’s big not only because of the volume of vehicles, but also because it involves safety issues following the
harrowing death of a California family. It’s also a big deal
because it concerns a
manufacturer who has hitherto been considered a paragon of virtue when it comes to quality.
I think it’s fair to say that more recalls have been announced, voluntarily or otherwise, by our own manufacturers. Also, this particular gas pedal attachment was made here. Now, I know it was made to Toyota’s specifications but the footprints plod heavily through our own backyard and track mud all through the living room.
In a way, I’m glad it wasn’t GM’s or Chrysler’s problem – can you imagine the furor of taxpayers seething after bailing them out? It certainly comes
at a time when the industry doesn’t need any more wounds to lick.
Do you remember the Ford Explorer-Firestone Tire debacle? It was made excruciatingly worse by the finger pointing at one another with two PR firms running away from each other and not addressing the problem head-on. This was crisis management at its worst and prolonged the perceived product damage unnecessarily.
Engineering has improved both brands, although the tires are now marketed as Bridgestone.
To Toyota’s massive credit, they have grabbed this potentially runaway train by the
caboose. The media, of course, is all over it like a cheap suit – some calmly and coolly reporting the facts, others histrionically raising the temperature in an effort to gain rating points.
Akio Toyoda himself apologized to the world. I can’t
remember any American manufacturers’ bosses taking this self–deprecating step.
What has resulted is a crisis management team, coordinated on a worldwide basis, from designers, technicians, makers, distributors and dealers, parts and service departments, advertisers and public relations companies as well as customers, the whole numbering in the thousands and costing around $4 billion to put things right.
Helping them is a tremendous goodwill capital investment in its existing customer base that, even under these withering
circumstances, will take a great deal to erode. They have also committed to study, and by this I mean build centers at every stage of product development from design to delivery, to ask if there are better ways to do things and to stop this kind of thing from happening again. It’s also an effort to immediately reestablish internal pride in the company and what it produces for its customers, thereby
underwriting future loyalty to Toyota. They’re not just telling the world that they screwed up and admitting as much, but they are getting out the economic birch twigs for a thorough whipping. Thank goodness they stopped short of committing “Seppuku”!
Whilst new Toyota sales have been put on hold, their used cars have followed suit, even at the wholesale level at the
auctions, as dealers are arranging to work overtime in the service departments. I’ve even heard of some working 24/7 to keep customers happy. One supreme irony is that some of their cars can’t stop while some of the others can’t be stopped. In this case the ABS software would appear to have a glitch, in that it can’t read sharp undulations under heavy braking. Don’t you love computers!
In this day and age of instant communications, word about these things doesn’t leak out slowly any more. It’s there in an Internet downpour. This new phenomenon is called ‘viral’ communications and it can be a marketing boon or provide a calamitous bust to those who don’t know how to handle things in adversity. In this case I think Toyota has learned some valuable lessons but has also shown the world that crisis management, properly handled, can contain the worst events and even come out the other end looking pretty good.
Bearing in mind the hugely loyal customer base, perhaps this is a case of ‘big is beautiful.’

An old Chinese proverb says, “A man who chases two rabbits loses both!” This year’s Detroit Auto Show underlined how many different technologies are being applied to the propulsion of the automobile.
Firstly, size matters. GM is developing a sporty little Aveo with styling cues from motorcycles and looks just aggressive enough to appeal to young
buyers. Ford’s Focus gets a hopped up looking revamp, much in the European style. It’s taken forever but the efficient, taut little cars with lots of
performance are starting to
replace the old American flabbiness. The new Buick concept should take new owners’ age grouping down by about twenty clicks. Noise reduction technology, better suspension systems and lightweight materials are starting to make the small car actually exciting rather than some cheap and cheerful buzz-bomb that would beat your brains and eardrums out.
Then there’s ethanol. This needs some serious work. The last vehicle I was in with its systems running on this ersatz fuel was a Suburban that wouldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding! The “check engine” light was on and it ran as rough as a 1982 diesel Cadillac Deville. I really question this as a serious, long-lasting alternative. If you want the same performance as the gasoline equivalent, then your foot is through the floorboards and the thing guzzles so many ears of corn the cattle farmers can’t get enough feed at reasonable prices so the cost of your filet mignon or flank steak goes through the roof. You didn’t save at the pump, you had to go to the service department and the supermarket got deeper into your pocket. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that this is not a great deal. I’ve said before that economics is just like physics; every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
What about battery technology? Again, there’s a long way to go. There are a couple of small makers getting terrific performance from cars that look (and probably feel) like a flying hammock but the weight of the batteries alone, to fuel a family sedan, would be an impediment to progress. Plus, an impromptu ride in the countryside, not knowing how many miles you might go, is out of the question – there aren’t many places to plug in around the hedgerows! So infrastructure is a huge deal here. Manufacturers would have you believe that the emissions from battery cars is just good old H2O – balderdash! How many tons of coal  or other fossil fuels were burned to
create and save the electricity in the first place? How many Kentucky and West Virginia mountain tops shall we strip to get the coal to burn? Again, don’t hold your breath for some silver bullet soon but we have to keep trying.
Hybrid drive systems seem to hold the most promise for the immediate. I have to admit considerable ignorance as to workings of this gadgetry. There may as well be a hamster running in a spinning wheel for all I know. The big question is if one goes wrong out of warranty, what’s the cost? How do you value a seven-year old vehicle with one of these systems? Is there some value matrix for utility left in a hybrid? We’ll let the guide books figure that one out.
It looks like internal combustion is still the most efficient and getting better, although I still hanker after a Cadillac CTS-V with a stick. My wife had one. It was the lustiest, most
lascivious thing on wheels with an exhaust note that tore at your very being. Let’s hope we can always enjoy these dalliances and indulgences.
Anyway, bravo for the New Year and all it may bring. May our tax dollars help those in charge to chase the right rabbit.

Spring Hill, Tenn., has lost its spring. When General Motors arrived in the late eighties amid much hoop-la and awash in state subsidies, the world was a different place.
By the time the plant opened in 1990 the community had swollen tremendously from a bucolic and pastoral southern idyll, harboring historic Civil War sites, Amish communities, trailer parks, farms with those beautiful, huge, red-roofed barns and the occasional country music singer’s retreat.
Now it looks more like “everywhere America”. The strip malls and shopping areas might as well be in Omaha, Neb., or Naperville, Ill.
The real test of this gray urban creep is going to be what it looks like when it’s empty.
In spite of our subsidies, Saturn has now been closed; Saab’s future is uncertain.
The possibility of resurrecting the factory as a producer of small- and mid-sized vehicles is cast even more remotely now that they’re shipping the robots back to Michigan.
Perhaps Spring Hill will become the new Hamtramck. In the confusion that is General Motors nowadays one has to wonder about the efficacy of some of these decisions. Will our money go to build new factories somewhere else in the future or shall we leave that to the foreign manufacturers? The fabric of our automobile manufacturing base is being rent asunder at the same time that we’re spending money that we can ill-afford on foreign wars.
I read that one soldier costs us $1.2 million per tour. That
includes everything from transportation, training, hardware and all else down to his or her Shredded Wheat.
I’ll leave you to do the math.
I used to visit Detroit when it was bustling, brash and even bullying. There was always an exciting sense of bold self-awareness.
Folks used to swagger around with their chests puffed up. Some of the larger-than-life characters involved with the “Big Four” (yes, there were then) enjoyed almost a celebrity status that today’s pop culture would envy. Restaurants like the London Chop House established a power-house clientele headed by Henry Deuce.
The splashing around of corporate expense account largesse ensured employment for all involved in the restaurant trade.
The Detroit Athletic Club was a notorious bastion of condescending management separatism but, at the same time, there was a sense that, if you worked hard enough, you too could dine “on the carpet or the tiles.”
What a fabulous place.
The sense of deals being won and lost here was almost palpable. Industry top-knobs like Lee Iaccoca would hold court and pontificate on his latest ideas.
The old GM Building on West Grand Boulevard was a treat for the eyes.
Outside, it boasted a classical square-shouldered, heavy set edifice, reflecting the self-
assured dark suits and white shirts of its occupants.
The lobby, showing off the
opulence of a by-gone era, was aglow in burnished bronze, gold and pewter hues with tile work fit for a palace. Even the elevator doors were works of art.
The folks in Detroit could
afford a tongue-in-cheek self mockery; always a sign of an
assured people. They even had The Polish Yacht Club being, of course, nowhere near the water.
But the food was taken
seriously; pierogies and kielbasa as popular here as hush puppies and cat fish in Spring Hill.
Alas, now Detroit is like a shuffling old man suffering from a terminal disease. Skeletal buildings and neighborhoods with boarded up windows like sunken eyes, shy away from the world.
One could stroll, at total leisure, across Jefferson without the danger of being run down.
Even Joe Louis’ giant fist poses no threat! And the new GM building, hard and bitter looking, appears to flip the bird to all around.
Maybe some of the money we’re spending in Afghanistan could be redirected to make
Detroit an I.T. center to rival
India’s best.
And Spring Hill could camouflage the buildings into barns.

Tony Moorby's Column Coming Soon!