Toyota has finally announced its fix for its pedal recall, which won’t require much car transport; the report of last week that a shim would be added to the friction shoe proved accurate, although Toyota calls the shim a “precision-cut steel reinforcement bar.” The repairs will be made at dealers and should take a half-hour per car. Vehicles with the floor mat issue will have that taken care of at the same time.
Since there are 2.3 million vehicles in the US with the problem, Toyota dealers will be working overtime getting the new reinforcement bars in place. Even at the half-hour pace, the recall will eat up 1.15 million mechanic-hours to replace. At a rough estimate of $100/fix between parts and labor, we’re looking at a two billion dollar hit to Toyota’s bottom line.
However, that figure doesn’t begin to factor in the badwill generated from “Pedalgate.” Congressional committees are circling, car-related unions are firing both rhetorical barrels and reloading, competitors are gaining market share at Toyota’s expense, and their cars have been frozen out of car rental fleets and auction houses. That damage might run into the tens of billions, as we’ve seen possibly the worst PR debacle on car safety since the Ford Pinto and its combustible fuel tanks.
This will be long term bad news for car haulers and other service firms associated with Toyota. Car manufacturers develop a string of suppliers around their plants that depend on them for survival. Having lived near their Georgetown, KY plant, I can testify that there are a lot of parts and auto-service firms in the area that depend on Toyota business; those firms will suffer if business at the Georgetown plant slows down.
Source: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100201/AU...or-sticky-pedal
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