Toyota, the world’s largest automaker company have been receiving numerous customer complaints in the past decade about a sudden acceleration problem in their vehicles. According to several sources, the company was well aware of this problem but they continued to remain quiet and denied any assumptions associated with this problem..

Why would they hide such a critical issue from the public and their valued customers? The only logical explanation would be to protect their prestigious reputation and prevent their shareholders from declining. However, this problem is imperative towards maintaining their relationship with their valued customers. They created an unnecessary threat towards their customer’s safety that would’ve answered many unexpected accidents and malfunctions that people have experienced with their vehicles. This substantial ethical problem will permanently  destroy the company’s reputation as well as a tremendous decrease in future sales. Toyota thought they could ignore this problem by covering it up without seriously considering possible long term consequences that the company would suffer from. Additionally, using their short term solution basically increased the severity of the problem. From the customer’s perspective, they attempted to hide vital information instead of admitting it was their fault when this issue was first discovered.

A recent article about the Toyota sudden acceleration case:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2013/07/21/first-toyota-acceleration-case/2573161/

Work Cited:

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/oct/29/business/la-fi-toyota-suit-20101029

http://www.carscoops.com/2012/03/toyota-refutes-cnn-report-that-it-knew.html