Toyota Ranks 17th for NHTSA Customer Complaints, Edmunds.com Analysis Shows
By Michelle Krebs February 10, 2010No automaker should gloat over Toyota's quality woes because no automaker is free and clear on the issue of customer complaints.
In fact, an analysis by Edmunds.com of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) complaint database shows Toyota ranks 17th among automakers in the number of complaints per vehicle sold over roughly the past decade.
According to the database, which is comprised of input from individuals and is not checked for accuracy by NHTSA, Toyota was the subject of 9.1 percent of the complaints from 2001 through 2010. During this period, the company sold 13.5 percent of all new cars in the United States.
Land Rover ranks first among automakers, with 0.6 percent of the complaints compared to only 0.1 percent market share from 2001 through 2010.
The following chart sets forth the results for all automakers in this research:
Edmunds.com analysts also attempted to evaluate the deaths and injuries reported in the NHTSA database, but it quickly became clear that the data is inaccurate. For example, one complaint indicated that 99 people had died in one vehicle as a result of an accident.
"No one should overlook the issues raised by the Toyota recall, but it is important to keep things in perspective," reminded Edmunds.com CEO Jeremy Anwyl. "Driver distraction and driver error are the leading causes of collisions, fatal and otherwise. Seatbelt campaigns, Oprah Winfrey's 'No Phone Zone' initiative and other efforts to minimize driver distractions such as texting while driving are likely to save many more lives than any recall fix."
Edmunds.com has compiled the following facts based on the data it has deemed reliable:
- With 300,000,000 people in the U.S. and 42,000 deaths per year, the chance of dying in a car accident is 0.01 percent.
- With 193,552,000 licensed drivers in the U.S. and 42,000 deaths per year, the chance of a driver dying is 0.02 percent.
- The chance of being struck by lightning in a year in the U.S. is 0.0001 percent.
Edmunds.com has created a free resource to keep consumers informed about the recent Toyota recalls.
In addition, Edmunds.com lists the top 10 driver distractions and offers advice how to deal with them on its Web site.
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On the surface a positive ....BUT I would look forward to further info. Specifically,
abcnews.go.com/Blotter/exclusive-toyota-lawyer-tells-abc-news-automaker-hides/story?id=9751262
"Former Toyota Lawyer Tells ABC News Automaker Hides Safety Problems
Dimitrios Biller Accuses Company of 'Hypocrisy and Deceit'
By JOSEPH RHEE, ASA ESLOCKER and MARK SCHONE
ABC News Feb. 10, 2010 —
In an exclusive interview with ABC News, a former top lawyer for Toyota claims the automaker regularly hid evidence of safety defects from consumers and regulators, and fostered a culture of "hypocrisy and deceit."
"You have to understand that Toyota in Japan does not have any respect for our legal system," said Dimitrios Biller, who worked as managing counsel for Toyota's American operations from 2003 to 2007. "They did not have any respect for our laws."
Biller handled product liability suits while with the company. He claims that when Toyota received poor results in a vehicle rollover test, it ordered a new test in order to receive better results. According to Biller, the company also made a practice of concealing proof of safety problems, and did not disclose information it was obligated to produce during litigation.
"They were hiding evidence, concealing evidence, destroying evidence, obstructing justice," said Biller.............."
Biller had also earlier told ABC that Toyota had hired away a top
NHSTA official after essentially gaming investigations of Toyota
incidents (eg, any acceleration lasting beyond 1 second was not
an unintended incident and so not a retained complaint).
PLUS how many companies generated such glaring incidents that a major insurance company like State Farm (that had a large enough database and sophisticated enough systems) could identify a pattern of incidents that only occurred once before in State Farms
systems (the Firestone tire Explorer fiasco) - ie,
"State Farm insurance warned U.S. regulators repeatedly of a rise in vehicle-accident claims involving Toyota vehicles and uninntended acceleration as far back as 2007,.............."
latimes.com/business/la-fi-state-farm-toyota10-2010feb10,0,2984898.story
The whole point of a culture of cover up is to minimize formal
statistics, claims, and reports
It'd be really nice if a numeric score had been produced so it'd be easier to tell not just rank score, but how close those ranked nearby were. Is Nissan just a slight bit off from GM or does the rate fall quite a bit between the two?
Divide % complaints by % market share. A few differ, likely only due to decimal rounding e.g. Isuzu/Jaguar.
Not that any stock should be put in this chart with respect to making 'safety evaluations'. This chart makes comparisons with the hidden assumption that all safety complaints are equal. A complaint for UA is given the same weight as a complaint for an interior light not turning on. In order to create a chart that holds value when making safety, economic or any other area of interest comparisons, one must put a weighted value on every variable in the set to be compared. These weights would depend on which area of interest was to be compared i.e. the weights for safety would vary from those for economics, however the variables would remain the same. Each variable would have its own weight that when multiplied by the number of complaints would give a value that could be reasonably compared to values of other variables. The weights of these variables would be dependent on a subset of variables that would have their own weighting system. The subset of variables for safety would include the various degrees of injury that have occurred in that group e.g. jammed finger due to interior light not turning on would fall into the variable group - Interior Lighting and sub-variable group - Jammed Finger. One would also have to produce reasonable error statistics. Error could arise as the result of failure to report (how many interior lights don't turn on and we don't know about it!) or being untruthful in a given report, whether by the individual or company. It would not be difficult to come up with a logical weighting system that would allow for reasonable comparisons between variables, and similarly between years, makes and models of vehicles. The problem with this type of rigorous scientific approach is that it is time consuming. It is not likely that a comparison website is going to choose this type of approach over a simplistic sum of numbers with little to no scientific meaning when the majority of those seeing it will not bat an eye. As an engineer, research like this makes me cringe.
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