March sales DOWN for Toyota brand cars

"Toyota brand cars, which make up nearly half of all company sales, saw a 2.9 percent drop to 103,888 units." (Not that mainstream media would bury this whoppin' one line disclosure, but to find it, ya gotta scroll down to about the 14th paragraph.) 

I figured all was not well for the Recall King's March sales when I didn't see a barrage of blaring headlines about the numbers. Kinda embarrassin' - 'specially that 16 percent drop in Prius sales - for those who claimed the public wasn't payin' any attention to Toyota's recent guilty plea to a federal criminal charge, its admissions of wrongdoing, and the $1.2 billion payola to the feds lest things get even worse. If any model has made headlines regarding sudden unintended acceleration, it's the much ballyhooed Prius.

Despite mainstream media efforts to whitewash the Recall King, focus on floor mats, sticky gas pedals, and driver error - while ignoring electronic issues - the public may be catchin' on to the scam. As I emphasized in my immediately preceding post, word has leaked out about electronic issues. The Oklahoma case, where 150 feet of skid marks from the plaintiff's tires corroborated the findings of a world-renowned embedded systems expert and put the Recall King in settlement mode, has not been ignored. Michael Barr's peers continue to do a superb job of publishing his findings in trade journals, amidst support from bloggers and consumer advocates. The Internet can be a powerful tool for exposing facts. Mainstream media's news blackout didn't go as planned. 

Not that everyone is now aware of Michael Barr's findings, but people are hearing about them, and government's mainstream media stooges - wary of egged faces - are nervously dropping inane hints about the involvement of electronics. Consumers may be starting to realize that Congress, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the Department of Justice are little more than mouthpieces for crooked corporations. Stay tuned as the gang faces further public scrutiny, not only about Toyota, but also GM.

As things now stand, informed consumers are more justified than ever before in not trusting Toyota and wondering if there's a problem in the Recall King's electronic throttle control. Nobody should be surprised that Toyota brand cars has suffered a decline in sales, especially since complaints of sudden unintended acceleration are continuing.

Frankly, I won't believe regulation of the auto industry has changed for the better until folks are reimbursed for all those engines that disintegrated in MR2 Spyders.