Toyota, once again, recalls 2.77 million vehicles, this time, for a pump problem and a steering shaft defect that could result in difficult and even hazardous steering. This does not bode well for the company’s reputation as this incident is only the most recent in a slew of recalls since 2000. These massive and frequent recalls do nothing positive for the reputation of the Japanese automaker. These mistakes look poorly on the company as a whole and decrease sales for Toyota. One would think that after several similar incidents,  the company would pay more attention to the quality control of their products. Mistakes like these that call into question the reliability of a product, of which safety is a key selling feature, can only lead to a decrease in sales. However, it seems that executives at Toyota are less concerned about the quality control and reliability that should be synonymous with the company name, but instead have decided to focus on pursuing aggressive growth and expansion. This begs the question: Will Toyota’s smeared reputation allow the company to pursue this growth? Or has the loss in public faith hindered these hefty ambitions? It seems that only time and no more recalls will determine this.

Sources:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/11/14/toyota-recall.html