[Shop-talk] Toyota Pedal Brouhaha

[John Miller]

> There were other indications that Toyota was on top of things. 

I've said for a long time (really) that:

a) Japanese and particularly Toyota vehicle quality (overall production, 
engineering, design, etc) peaked around 1990; the decontenting got 
pretty aggressive by the middle of the decade.

b) Even at that, the only vehicle I'd ever buy in its first year of 
production would be a Japanese-built Toyota.

The last Japanese car we owned was a '92 Infiniti Q45 (the best of cars 
and the worst of cars) and prior to that an '88 Celica (at 120K mi 
something - a window switch - finally broke.)

Recent Japanese-brand product trends toward ergonomically intolerable 
(nipple-high Toyota beltlines), godawful ugly (can anyone look at a 
current Mazda3 without a little bile brewing up in the throat?) or both 
though I have to admit the last-gen Mitsu Evo (not the current 
oversized, pagoda-shaped thing) is a remarkably attractive and 
well-tailored shape - if you ditch all the spoilers and vortex 
generators and other crap.

Excuse me, I have to go take my bitchy-pill now.

John.