Toyotas major problem with there cars.

[Dammit!]

Here is the North American Content as of 2009:
GM: 69%
Ford Motor Co.: 64%
Chrysler Corp.: 60%
Honda/Acura: 58%
Toyota/Lexus/Scion: 44%
Nissan/Infiniti: 31%
Mitsubishi: 25%
Subaru: 20%
Mercedes-Benz: 16%
Suzuki: 12%
Mazda: 11%
Volkswagen/Audi: 9%
BMW/Mini: 5%
Jaguar/Land Rover: 3%
Porsche: 3%

This is parts content, as in where the parts are made for the entire lineup for said manufacturer. Its easy to single out the one off model like the Aveo and say Chevy is made in Korea. Or say Toyota is the most America just because the Camry has the most domestic content.

But when you look at each company's entire lineup, the Domestics are by far the most "American". Also per law domestic content includes Canada, but not Mexico.

http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2...utomakers.html

That covers parts content but is there a list on assembly? I'd be curious to see who assembles the most cars in the US (assembly lines employ a hell of a lot of people). It's usually model specific. Like with Nissan, all the Titans are assembled in the US with like 90% american parts but the Sentras are built largely in Mexico with a mix of parts from the US and Japan, etc.

[hancadam]

Here are the top 11 American made cars with the most American made content. Not a Nissan on the list.

Make/Model Domestic-parts content Assembly location
Ford Taurus 90 percent Chicago
Lincoln MKS 85 percent Chicago
Toyota Sienna 85 percent Princeton, Ind.
GMC Savana 1500 82 percent Wentzville, Mo.
Chevrolet Express 1500 82 percent Wentzville, Mo.
Buick Lucerne 81 percent Detroit
Chevrolet Malibu 80 percent Kansas City, Kan.
Honda Odyssey 80 percent Lincoln, Ala.
Toyota Avalon 80 percent Georgetown, Ky.
Toyota Tundra 80 percent San Antonio
Toyota Venza 80 percent Georgetown, Ky.

[hancadam]

GM alone employs more Americans than all foreign automakers combined; 40 percent of GM’s worldwide workforce is in the United States, compared to only 11 percent of Toyota’s.

Chrysler employs about 83 workers for every 2,500 vehicles sold, Ford employs 80 and General Motors 71, according to the Washington-based Level Field Institute. By comparison, Toyota employs 33 American workers for every 2,500 cars sold.

Buying a vehicle with the highest percentage of domestic parts possible helps the U.S. economy by invigorating the national auto parts industry, which provides 1.8 million jobs domestically.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25375103

[inv3ctiv3]

GM alone employs more Americans than all foreign automakers combined; 40 percent of GM’s worldwide workforce is in the United States, compared to only 11 percent of Toyota’s.

Chrysler employs about 83 workers for every 2,500 vehicles sold, Ford employs 80 and General Motors 71, according to the Washington-based Level Field Institute. By comparison, Toyota employs 33 American workers for every 2,500 cars sold.

Buying a vehicle with the highest percentage of domestic parts possible helps the U.S. economy by invigorating the national auto parts industry, which provides 1.8 million jobs domestically.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25375103

Sorry man but they are pieces of crap, every American car my family has owned was a giant POS. My mom has a brand new Chevy malibu which is actually pretty nice but is ALWAYS breaking on it. The door locks are always breaking, the door handles break, etc. I would never own one to be honest, if I am going to spend that much on a car I want it to work. American car companies are doing so poorly because of their many many years of making inferior products and people realized they were inferior and started buying Japanese.....Why would you not want a car that was both cheaper and more reliable? Now the American car companies are scrambling to stay alive and make better cars but they don't have a long history of making good reliable cars so it's a fresh start for them....And most people rather buy from a company that is and has been reliable and good for many many years (BMW, Toyota, Honda, etc).

I realize my views are MUCH different then most people on this forum being that I am 23 and from California, I don't have blind faith in American products like most people in other areas of the country....I look at where things are made allllll day, whenever I am shopping with the GF I just go around and see how much it is and where it was made.....I believe the american's do make a lot of good products I just don't think their cars are any good, I always rather buy my stuff if it was made in Germany or Japan. I've just had better luck with their products as their standards and attention to detail (in more ways then just manufacturing) are so much higher then here. I work for a major manufacturing software company so I am around manufacturing, manufacturers and factories all day. The one place I try and keep my money out of is China, I don't want to support them at all and their products are absolute .

[Dirtcrasher]

Best post in this thread.

The problem usually is found to be "loose nut behind the wheel" syndrome.

I am not sure what the problem is.
I have heard the floor mats are getting pushed into the pedal acclerating the vehicle.That is no new news.That happened before on many vehicles.
I would have a hard time thinking it is a Fly by wire problem, as most systems I have seen, are a 4 circuit rendundant system.
In other words, if one circuit fails, it defualts to a limp in mode of only 20 MPH. Corvettes have been running these systems for 10 years with no issues like this.
It would take a massive control module issue, or all 4 circuits to fail at the same time with the correct voltage values to cause these accidents.

There was a state trooper with his family that just died in one of these accidents. HE is on the cell phone with 911 during the problem.
I know when people get in a panic problem, they sometimes freeze up, but why didnt he throw the car into neutral? If he had enough focus to call 911 and talk on the phone for 30 seconds, he could have thrown the car into neutral.
Put the phone down and shift the car into neutral.

Nothing ever built will be totally " people proof ".

And this is just one more instance of things being made too complicated. We drove cars for years with a traditional cable design, with very little problems.These cars dont need all this crap.
Congratulations engineers.You took a system that was controlled by a 15$ part, made it more complicated,and now has a repair cost that can reach 1000$ depending on what part fails.

Where is the "Dirtcrasher likes this post!" button?? lol........

If you can't shift to neutral and pull over, you better take another driving test. And they certainly have made simply,easy, ordinary things too complex. In another 25 years I bet nothing will run without computer controls..... And they'll fail because they will have been cheapened up.

My 94 Toyota rolling on 33"s is very easy to fix, almost all of it. And it is certainly one tough truck which also pulled out full size trucks many times.

DEEPA has a great 1500? Chevy truck. Without him, I wouldn't be in PA. as it would be too much for my (improperly geared) oversized Toy to pull a trailer and all the gear. I love his truck, so many nice options such as heated seats; Very nice stuff to have. But he'll tell ya, when something fails it's not very easy or ever inexpensive to fix. His dealer seems to "stretch" the estimated repair cost of many problems and Mike ends up fixing as much as he can himself. Too many options, too many computers and I doubt they'll all survive for 17 years like my 1st Toyota did. Crank handles on a geared track don't break; Motors and logic controllers do.........

Then again, I doubt he'd even want to keep it 17 years. Everyone's situation is different but I love driving vehicles that have been paid off for another 5 years or at least twice as long including the original "loan period" lasted.

Most people don't make enough money to throw things away these days. Like Mom said, when she was a kid everything got fixed and it was all WORTH FIXING. Not the case these days.

Off Topic but:

It's very hard to buy nice tools and things of that sort these days.
Plastic took away all the rigid materials.

What bothers me is even the best stuff sold is still junk sometimes, very sad to see.........

Honestly, WHO deserves million or millions' of dollar bonuses? HOW can we make inexpensive items to function well, built in America and at a cost people can afford?? The cheaper tool use to still "do the job" but those tools are lucky to last one day in some situations.......

SAD SAD SAD!! I could go on forever, sorry for the book and rambling

[hancadam]

Actually the main reason American car companies took such a sales hit was the price of gas. In 2001 MPG was the number 8 reason when selecting a car, in 2008 it became the number 1 reason.

Also, Toyota, Nissan, and Honda all generally cost more new than an American car. Case in point, I need a Fullsize truck that gets fairly good MPG. I bought a brand new Silverado for 16,800 out the door. Yes that with rebates and such, but you could not touch a Titan, Tundra, or even a Ridgeline for that kinda of money with there rebates included.

I like them all. I have owned two Silverado's, Two frontiers, 1 Cavalier, 1 Sunfire, 2 F-150's, 1 Nissan Sentra, 1 Expedition, and 1 Honda accord. Some where new, some where old. All have honestly been good cars. Never had major issues with any of them. All have or had over 150k miles on them before trading or selling except for my two Silverado's. One of the F-150's had 243k miles on it when it got totaled. Ironically not a Toyota, but this government middling makes me want one.

Another things is parts. A new engine for my Chevy would be under 1k bucks. My dad was going to replace the engine in one of my Frontiers that he bought from me and used as a parts runner for his company until he was quoted nearly 3k just for the engine. The truck wasn't worth that much.

They are all good and bad, and all have pros and cons. They are made by humans, so some of them will always let you down. You can find an argument and evidence to support or trash any of the big brands.

[Billy Golightly]

I'm seeing ALOT of post baiting and trolling going on in this thread. Seriously if you guys can't have an intelligent debate without calling stuff "junk" just to try and get the other person riled up, then just hit the freaking back button and do not bother. These brand war threads when it comes to cars and trucks ALWAYS turn out this way.

[big yeller]

Its amazing how much wrong info is being spewed on both sides of this argument. They both have your pros and cons. Buy what you like.

exactly. i have bought 2 ford diesels in my short life time they are all made in the usa they have been a outstanding truck. i plan on to continue to buy from ford, thats about all our family owned except my dad and he was driving chevys for a while which was a ok truck but now he has about the same truck i do. i have never bought a car cause they are useless to me so i dont know how good cars are...im glad i stayed out of this thread for a while.

[Escanabajosh]

my girlfriend bought her rav4 2001 a little over a year ago. right after she bought it (about 3 months) the tranny started to slip, drained tranny and put in fresh filter/fluid. still slipping! i did a little research on the computer and turns out it's somthing that happens to EVERY 2001-2003 automatic rav4's. the ECM needs to be reflashed or reprogramed and then it should fix it! most the time though the trannys junk so its about $3,000 for the tranny and a little over $1,000 for a new ECM! i just sent it into a guy off Ebay who fixs them, should be back monday. i hope it works and the tranny ain't junk!

a bunch of rav4 owners are trying to have it fixed or recalled but they ignore them.

i'm a ford guy but them old toyotas wont do ya wrong, i'd stay away from the new crap they got. were fixing it and selling it to buy a older 4runner.

heres a few links on the 2001-2003 RAV4

http://www.carcomplaints.com/Toyota/...shifting.shtml
http://www.carcomplaints.com/Toyota/..._the_ecm.shtml
http://rav4world.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=15515

[Thorpe]

I like Dirtcrashers point of, I drive my (in my case) Jeep, because its paid off, always starts and relatively easy to work on. Favorite feature it has, PAID OFF

[ditchmud]

I really hate threads like this. People are always bashing the american auto workers. Calling their work inferior and that they are over paid blah, blah, blah. Then in the next sentence say I love my Toyota and it's made here in America. Guess what folks We Are Americans here (for the most part) and the American work force is the most productive work force in the world. We work more hours than any other workforce and produce more in that time than anybody else anywhere. I make parts for chrysler just as good as the guy in Texas makes his for Toyota. I take pride in my work just as much as anybody else. The parts that are failing on most of these cars are not American made. They may have come from some company based in America but I bet money that the parts were shipped in from some factory in some 3rd world country. When our vehicles have problems it usually isn't the stuff that is made here that breaks it's the cheap little switches, sensors etc. that are made by the cheapest source that they can find. Vehicle manufacturers seek out the cheapest suppliers for the cheapest parts and when they fail as they often do it all comes back on the workers that build the cars.

[Nick_R_23]

TOYOTA is not junk.....

IDNK the exact issue but apparently one of these is just a simple shim fix.

Toyota is like Honda, tight tolerances. Sometimes a thousandth here or there is all it takes to bind up. I bet this shim just gives the pedal pivot a bit more play.

As far as any issues with software, well, thats the problem. Old school is gonezo, computers run everything and they aren't perfect either.

Your entitled to your opinion but I wouldn't trade my 94 Toy 4x4 for much, unless I had to tow!! 33" tires not geared don't tow well!!

Its true that the fix is only a shim. The shim is basically a plastic washer that they slip in behind the spring for the gas pedal, to give it slightly more tension. Toyota's studys have shown there is no inherent flaw in the pedal design itself. Also, the floor mats were never the original problem, just something they could blame the problem on until they could look into it more.

-Nick

[yammer hammer]

I am just going to let everyone know that american cars are about a million times better than imported ones.

[Escanabajosh]

how about that new american made 2010 camaro, or i mean canadian made!

they all suck with there computers and electronic this and that. what ever happen to making a car outta metal? nothing like a late 70's ford pickup!

[fabiodriven]

nothing like a late 70's ford pickup!

Now we're talkin! But I wouldn't limit it to the late 70's. I'd say from the early sixties until 88 or so.