of Toyota

Even though I'm a long time and well known Toyota hater, I have to say I'm actually starting to feel sorry for them. First the unwanted acceleration in practically every car they make, then brakes in the Prius, and now I'm hearing about the Prius accelerating out of control when on cruise control (irony?)

The big question here is... are their cars really THAT bad, or is this just exponential loss of consumer confidence? Could it be that nearly every car they make is defective?

My theory is, as we all know, once you KNOW there is a problem it's quite easy to become extra picky about any other minor problem. Granted, a car accelerating when on cruise control is a pretty big problem, but why didn't we hear about this before the big recall? Same thing with the brakes. It seems people were happily driving along in their Prius with the funky brakes for years, but now that there's a big recall on accelerators people think "hmm, this doesn't seem right". Not that there's anything wrong with that. Consumers should be critical of their cars. For most people a car represents the second most expensive thing they own, so you should be happy with it!

It's hard to say what the long term result of this will be. For my part, I hope only that it helps level the playing field. The Japanese car industry can make mistakes just as well as the Americans or anyone else. Although, at the end of the day I expect the biggest benefit will be realized by Hyundai/Kia.