Explaining Toyota’s “reliability crisis”

As the end of 2024 approaches and you reflect on the last twelve months and everything you did or didn’t do, think about this: you probably had it easier than Toyota. 2024 hasn’t been a good, if not very bad, year for the company’s reputation for reliable cars, with a string of high-profile recalls, defects and generally catastrophic failures. Although we must give them credit: they said that there would be no more boring cars.

That is, only this year, Toyota had to replace engines in more than 100,000 Tundra and Lexus LX pickups because manufacturing problems caused them to seize up. More than 380,000 of the latest generation Tacomas have been recalled. because the rear axle was not screwed on correctly, and transmissions no longer work in a new truck. Failed traction control software Corolla Cross hybrid leads to failure of the brake booster. Meanwhile GR86 still blowing engines due to oil starvation, and now A pair of GR Corollas accidentally caught fire under mysterious circumstances.

Not great! It definitely feels like things are snowballing. But is this true? Clearly, Toyota is doing extraordinarily poorly. Less obvious is the web of interconnected causes behind many of these recent problems, and it paints a bigger picture.

I’m really not trying to discount the obvious fact that 100,000 faulty engines in itself is the definition of a reliability crisis. But another thing about crises is that they tend to be short-lived, as I think is the case here. This isn’t a permanent shift—yet.

Let’s take the Tundra debacle: Toyota replaced the old plain V8 engine with a new twin-turbocharged V6 when the new generation debuted in 2021. Immediately, people wondered whether the smaller, punchier engine would hold up in the real world. When hundreds of them failed over the next few years, the fears seemed justified. Earlier this year, Toyota finally revealed the cause: metal shavings accidentally left behind during production had gotten stuck in critical areas.

It’s a bad mistake, but at the same time it’s just a really stupid mistake, like an MLB pitcher throwing a pitcher into the stands. As frustrating as this may be for owners, I would argue that it doesn’t indicate deep problems or that the company is making a conscious choice to move away from the standards that made it great. This is not surprising, since the last generation Tundra was in production for more than 14 years. In the end they may do it in their sleep, and the change of generations will inevitably bring new problems.

Like the Tacoma, the latest generation truck used a 5-speed automatic transmission that dates back more than 30 years. Toyota finally introduced a new 8-speed transmission in the new truck when it hit dealerships this year. As with the Tundra, the first six months of sales were accompanied by alarming forum posts about complete transmission failures at less than 5,000 miles. At this point, Toyota has acknowledged the problem and is looking into it, but without a recall, no official cause has been identified. Again, this is a serious problem. Again, this involves a completely new major component replacing one that has been in production for an incredibly long time.

There’s also an issue with the axle, which I think is interesting. It is also an assembly error where weld residue gets stuck on the bolts and prevents the nuts from being fully tightened at the factory. The recall covers 381,000 2022 and 2023 model year Tacomas, which happens to be the period when Toyota moved production of the truck from San Antonio to two plants in Mexico as the Texas plant retooled the new Tundra and Sequoia. Mexican factories used to produce Tacomas only in limited quantities, and suddenly they became America’s only suppliers. It’s not hard to attribute large performance increases to assembly issues.

GR86 engine failures have been observed for many years, starting with the first generation of the car. During assembly, too much liquid gasket material is applied to the oil pan, resulting in a lip of excess RTV on the inside of the pan that can come off, become stuck and stop the flow of oil. Toyota has never issued a product recall. The company (and its dealers) have made the problem much worse by denying warranty claims for ridiculous reasons and forcing people to make a scene in the media to get a new engine.

Even though it’s a low-volume car and the overall failure rate is much lower than the Tundra, and Subaru actually makes the engine, the GR86 oil problem is often cited as Exhibit A since Toyota’s reliability is in the toilet right now. . I would say two things: first, this is not a new problem. And secondly, this is not directly related to the question of whether RAV4s will start to catch fire. However, the GR Corollas… they should beat this model.

However, the thing about Toyota is that it is virtually the only automaker left that produces extremely popular models in every single segment. It’s incredibly visible, incredibly popular and incredibly massive. Ultimately, despite a bad year, Toyota’s recall rate is still much lower than most other companies, its used car reliability rating is still very high, and as the best-selling automaker in America, it still offers much more 100% reliable cars than some other companies. the entire annual production volume of companies. We just notice it a lot more when a student with an A student suddenly gets a B. Toyota can change that; he just needs to get back into the books.

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