Toyota Gas Pedal Recall

According to an article in the Boston Herald, Japan is not getting as many queries about the Toyota gas pedal recall as other countries. The same model cars are in the U.S., Europe and Japan, but they were not made in the same place. The cars were made in their respective countries. (http://www.bostonherald.com/business/automotive/view.bg?&articleid=1229340&format=&page=1&listingType=bizauto#articleFull)

This raises the question of why Toyota consumers are not having problems with the cars in Japan, but there are problems everywhere else? Toyota should compare how the cars are produced in Japan, compared to the other countries to figure out what the differences are and what may cause a problem for cars outside of Japan.

From a PR standpoint, in my opinion, Toyota handled their situation well when it was first discovered- they immediately recalled the cars that had problems and notified the public. However, they should have worked on fixing the problem right away.

According to another article in the Boston Herald, over the weekend, Toyota was still deciding how to approach fixing the problem; meanwhile people are driving the cars around. They were going to have the parts sent to the factories to be fixed, instead of the dealers themselves. (http://www.bostonherald.com/business/automotive/view.bg?articleid=1229156&srvc=next_article)

This past Monday it was announced that the parts to fix the cars were being ordered and should be in by the end of this week. (http://bostonherald.com/business/automotive/view.bg?articleid=1229763) I think Toyota could have communicated a little better up front to their consumers about how the issue was going to be solved, when and whether people can drive in their cars until then.