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#11
moppy

Posted 09 January 2004 - 11:58 AM

moppy

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ckkl,
why u hate toyota?

#12
ckkl

Posted 09 January 2004 - 03:20 PM

ckkl

    Driver

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Maybe "hate" is a strong word. Toyota does produce some good cars and
have unrivalled quality control.

Toyota's ethos and the way they choose to operate is not something I like
to be a part of e.g. by buying or liking their cars. Basically Toyota is
only concerned with the bottomline and increasing shareholder wealth.
That's fine from an investor standpoint but not from a car fan's
perspective.

Some examples:

-Toyota engineers cheat on advanced mechanic testing in Japan.
-Toyota caught cheating in WRC (by running an illegal intake restrictor)
-Toyota enters CART only to dissolve the league.
-First year in CART (partnering reigning champion team Chip-Ganassi),
Toyota's booth at Detroit Car show display a Toyota Chip-Ganassi car and
a placard claiming Toyota won the previous 3 championships (even though
Chip-Ganassi was running Honda engines to win those championships).
-Toyota F1 effort led by Ove Andersson, the man behind the WRC cheating
scandal.
-While running up a $1billion+ budget, manage to finish 8th in F1 WCC
only in front of privateer teams Jordan and Minardi (combined budget
probably 20% of Toyotas). All the while, Toyota put up advertorial
spreads in major magazines touting their "success".
-Toyota F1 suspected of industrial espionage: stealing F2002 design
blueprints. Toyota offices raided.

Anyway this is no real knock on Toyota cars. They're not bad. I don't
like the heavy Supra and the 1ZZ-powered Celica's gearbox is poorly
spaced but overall pretty good.