Toyota Case Study

Toyota Case

Akhilesh Mokharia

PGP17159

Decision Argument:

Toyota was the largest automaker in the world because of the reputation of quality. It’s built on company’s philosophy of quality first. But because of few events of unintended acceleration, company’s reputation was going down. So the decision to be made was rather the Toyota Camry should be recalled back or not.

  In initial phase Toyota denied any manufacturing defect in the car. According to them, the floor mat was the reason for unintended acceleration because mostly it stuck in acceleration pedal which cause the acceleration. The decision options they chose was releasing a statement saying that the floor mat is causing the problem and warned them not to use the floor mat on the original carpet.

Later Toyota made the decision to recall all the Camry model cars. The criteria for this decision is purpose of driver’s safety. Even removing the floor mat from the car, drivers were still facing issue of unintended acceleration. According to company’s philosophy safety always comes first. Company built its reputation on safety and quality basis. But after government outrage company became afraid of getting same response from public. There were several compelling reasons to call back the Camry model in which first was safety issue of customer. There were several accidents because of this. Another reason is company’s reputation was going down because of negative word of mouth and anger by public and media.

Other options were the call back the vehicles in which floor mat was not compatible with the vehicle but as people argued the even after removing the floor mat, they were still facing the same unintended acceleration.

Conclusion:  Call back the all cars of Camry was the right choice as it established company’s brand and image again. It gave drivers safety and restore the customer service and perception.

Evaluation Argument:

Toyota is being evaluated on its model Carmi.  The criteria of this evaluation is based on safety issues, NHTSA report and public complaints and responses.

The quality and safety were prime features in Toyota. But its new Carmi model have many safety issues. The floor mat is not compatible with the vehicle which usually got stuck in acceleration pedal which caused the unintended acceleration and further accidents. Toyota recalled all the defected floor mat cars but even after removing the floor mat people facing same problem. Even media showed the detailed report on the issue which causes the bad reputation of the company. NHTSA was formed for inspection of this issue but Toyota didn’t corporate with them and firmed with its statement of improper floor mat. For halt the investigation Toyota recalled the limited default floor mat. But even after the death of Mark Saylor and his family in San Diego Toyota didn’t respond well. Toyota itself faced the same problem in its testing lab where trim panel got stuck in acceleration pedal which caused unintended acceleration. For this issue Toyota just changed the trim panel. Later according to NHTSA people attempt to press the brake pedal to slow down the car which rendered the brake useless. This report caused government and public outrage which had negative effect on company’s reputation and image.