Toyota: A Firsthand Account

By Nigel Middlemiss, Knowledge Director, Echo Research

Not long ago we (my wife Prisca and I) bought a Toyota Prius, the “3rd Generation” model, which had just come on to the market. But within a month, the “Gen 3” Priuses had been recalled by Toyota because the brake pedal “felt strange” when the anti-skid system (ABS) operated.

I realised with mild surprise that we’d become what in my day job are known as “stakeholders“, enmeshed in a “product crisis”. I decided to note how it developed in case there were any passing insights into brand reputations.

So how did Toyota do?

Well, first of all, this particular stakeholder was slightly resentful that he had to schlepp out to a West London dealership to have a software patch loaded to stop the alleged “strange feeling” of the brakes.

More seriously, pride in the shiny new possession was dented by Toyota’s reputational hit. I almost felt as if we’d rented a charming country cottage and woken next morning to find a motorway at the bottom of the garden. Because of the recall, there were far fewer conversations than I’d have liked about the things that had made the Prius the Green Car of the Year 2009 in the US, or the City Car of the Year 2009 in the UK.

A third, insidious, effect was that, when I looked at web forums about the Prius, once people had seen one tiny bit of the reputation crumble, they piled in en masse to demolish other bits. “Apparently the fuel consumption isn’t as good as a manual diesel”, “Apparently the boot’s too small to be any use because of the huge electric motor”, and so on. A sort of crowd fever set in.

A month or so went by, and the Prius story began to fade in the media. And then, strangely, now that the reputational tsunami had calmed, we started to take a fresh look. A blog about Toyotas I read put it in perspective: in the last 15 years there’ve been seven recalls of Audis, 12 for BMWs, six for Bentleys and 16 for that byword for reliability the VW. Meanwhile, in March In the US, where concerns had been strongest, Toyota reported 20 per cent year-on-year sales growth for Priuses.

We began to notice again some of the virtues we’d bought it for. Here again were the convenience and comfort of the feather-light controls, the drive-by-wire systems that turn the gearshift into an electronic console, the ease of reversing guided by video cameras, the facility to have the vehicle parked for you in the tightest space with a radar-based system that spins the steering wheel (while you take your hands off), another radar controller that keeps you a safe distance from the car ahead, and, not least, very low petrol consumption, especially now unleaded had climbed to 120p a litre. And because of the low exhaust pollution, no road tax and no London congestion charge. Its deeper virtues were surfacing again.

The worst of it, I realised, looking back, had been the negative ‘peer pressure’. It had been – still is, of course, till Toyota’s reputation fully reasserts itself - a case of “You’ve nothing to fear from the loss of reputation but fear itself”. Other people’s take on it had clouded the reality in my mind – not of course, that it had been a risk-free occurrence, but that it was one among many, which most car brands encounter, that it could be rectified, and that it would eventually be history.

So I’m no longer a stakeholder with product issues, and I much prefer it that way.

The opinions and views expressed in this blog are the personal opinions of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Echo Research, its staff or any of its affiliates.