Toyota motors is taking a lot of beating right now. Start from faulty gas pedal, floor mat on popular models and 2010 model Prius' brake and now they are talking about other models' steering system. It is almost like picking on a kid who are already down and crying.
Toyota has been known as most reliable vehicles on market and the expectation was almost unrealistic one point, yet the company was chasing the maximum efficiency in factories so this might have been bound to happen. The company had never lost money making cars since its establishment in 1937 till 2 years ago.
My family has been a big Toyota fan/supporter and as far as I remember, they have been purchasing generations of Toyotas. When I was a kid, my dad had Corona Mark II. I remember taking lots of family road trips with the car. I never saw him fixing or working on it; it was a great vehicle that you can rely on.
Back then, my dad smoked. In early 70’s, almost all of male adults smoked everywhere, including hospitals, schools, and of course in passenger cars or any other public transportation, regardless of presence of pregnant women or children. Yeah, they said it was safe and non addictive....
I don’t really remember utilizing seat belt back then.. Well, we did have seat belts in the Mark II, but they were usually buried between seat and back rest. I did push it even deeper so that buckles will not hurt my butt. My dad’s smoke filled up the small car and always made me sick and often felt like puking. I was afraid of my dad so I could not tell him that I was getting sick and wanted him to stop the car. He hated wimpy kids. I was not allowed to be one….I puked inside of the car many times and often sticking my head out from the window of the running Mark II, shooting out half digested junk food I had eaten earlier from my mouth. I was smacked by my father every time I did that until he got tired of yelling and smacking. He finally told me that it was okay to ask him to stop the car if I got sick. So I did since then, but after my dad stopped the car in the middle of no where, I got out of the car to throw up, the sickness often disappear as soon as I was outside of the car…The puke did not come out of my mouth. Then I was afraid of my dad yelling at me for making him stop the car for nothing. I quickly learned to utilize my finger to induce vomiting. (The use of finger came in handy in my heavily drinking days.)
All the time, I had no idea that cigarette smoke was the reason I was getting sick from. It was not car sick… Come to think of it, I have never gotten motion sickness even on a small boat in a windy day. Anyway, I felt very nostalgic about Corona Mark II. They made pretty cool cars in 60's and 70's.
A few years ago, I saw the exact model of mark II was on sale at Craig's list in Seattle for $2200. I seriously thought about getting it at the time. That would be the first time for me to actually ride the car and not getting sick.
I hope Toyota fix all those problems and recovers from this mess real soon and start making more cars that keep going like psycho ex-girl friends.
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