Toyota's growing safety woes are gnawing away at the company's reputation, reports Ahmed Morsy Toyota's manufacturing prowess has been the topic of countless books, has been emulated by rivals, including Ford Motor Company, and viewed as critical in Toyota's climb from a tiny Japanese car-maker to the world's biggest auto company, surpassing General Motors in 2008. Nevertheless, despite being the world's giant car-maker, the Japanese company's quality reputation has recently been badly damaged worldwide. This came as a result of a gas pedal problem that led to the recall of millions of cars globally. Since October, Toyota has recalled 8.5 million vehicles around the world for accelerator, braking and floor mat problems that may result in unintended acceleration -- the biggest recall in its seven-decade history. The gas pedal and floor mat defects were design errors in supplier parts, while faulty braking in hybrid models was caused by a software glitch. Concerning Egypt, Ahmed Monsef, executive chairman of Toyota Egypt, stressed that since the beginning of the announcement of the flaw on 21 January there hasn't so far been one case in Egypt of defective pedals. "We are working in full swing to make sure that the existing categories in Egypt are free from this defect," Monsef added. Explaining the defect of the acceleration pedal, he said, "it occurs as a result of an imbalance in the gas pedal and this is due to several reasons. One of the reasons is the intervention of external factors, such as the intensification of water by the use of air conditioning and heating. This happens in very cold weather where the use of air conditioning is semi-permanent." Monsef pointed out that this defect exists in eight Toyota models, with three imported into Egypt: the Camry, Corolla and the RAV4. "Toyota takes into account what happened and also understands the mentality of the Egyptian consumer. The company opened lines of communication to the parent company to increase the emphasis on cars imported to be free of defects." Al-Ahram Weekly tried to get more details on other defects but the Marketing Department of Toyota Egypt refused further comment. "We are trying to explain the problem through one voice and the release of Ahmed Monsef was enough for clarification in order to avoid any misunderstandings," Yasser Abdel-Aziz, senior marketing specialist of Toyota, told the Weekly. Recent days showed that Toyota Egypt is confronting a different range of defects than those found worldwide. A local defect related to transmission in the Toyota Corolla MMT 2008 and 2009, which were manufactured in South Africa, is among them. Said El-Alfi, chairman of the Egyptian Consumer Protection Agency, said that 6,500 defective Corolla cars would be recalled at the company's expense. He added during a press conference held Sunday that the recall would cost the company about LE20 million. "The maintenance centres of the company in Egypt do not accommodate the total number of defective vehicles, noting that the company would call up the owners of these cars according to phases, to mend them until 31 July," El-Alfi said. A technical committee of professors from the faculties of engineering at Helwan and Ain Shams universities examined the vehicles. The committee found that the defect does not affect overall safety; however, it may cause the car to stop suddenly. "I have no defects in my car, and it is good with me," said Yomna Bassiouni, 27, a Corolla owner. Mohamed Nasr, 40, who has the same car, said: "Although I read about the defects, I still feel safe while driving the car." "The defective gearbox used in the Corolla exists and it is used in a number of other brands as well. Therefore, the agency is currently making a survey to follow up any complaints and discover them," El-Alfi said. "The agency has received complaints from other models, including the Volkswagen and Honda. Nonetheless, they were limited cases and not yet a phenomenon," he added. Though complaints at Honda were related to the gearbox in recent models in the Egyptian market, it seems not a worldwide pattern. Honda has become the latest Japanese auto- manufacturing giant to announce mass recalls, covering models made in 2001 and 2002, the bulk of which were sold in North America. Honda, Japan's second largest automaker, recalled more than 430,000 vehicles worldwide to fix defective airbags that can blow up and injure or kill occupants. In addition, the recall, which also covers Japan, Mexico, Taiwan and Australia, expands on previous recalls since 2008 of more than half a million vehicles for the same defect. "The news about defects in Honda models in Egypt is not credible," Mohamed Mustafa, head of Mohandessin Honda branch, told the Weekly. "Our 2009 and 2010 models are well manufactured and we didn't get any complaints so far. We also didn't get any official report from the parent company in Japan that admits these alleged defects," Mustafa underlined. "For me, the customer is the main focus. So the media should not publish any doubtful reports so as not to affect the market as long as the news is not accurate," he said.
