Another big recall. Blogger targets Akio.

Apparently, Toyota is tryin' to get in a few more big recalls before 2013 runs out. The latest recall (fifth biggie for the year, second recall in the past week) involves a whopping 885,000 units, featuring - of all things - spiders tampering with air bag deployment. Call this their "Halloween recall," bringing the total number of recalled units to six million for 2013. According to Toyota (I won't belabor that one), the nasty little critters can even play havoc with the steering. Toyota is "aware" of multiple instances of air bag, etc. malfunctions, resulting in two "minor" injuries.

Don't blame it all on spiders, jus' some of it, sez the Recall King. Now that's good advice. An Omaha woman has just been awarded $6.2 million in her airbag lawsuit dating back to a Lexus crash in 2007. The jury deliberated all of four and a half hours to conclude that not only was the airbag defective, but "the car did not 'conform' to the generally recognized and prevailing state of the art in the industry at the time the 2004 Lexus ES 330 was first sold by Toyota.”

Spiders? Hmm... Reminds me of all those MR2 "Spyders" mysteriously plagued by suddenly disintegratin' engines. Yessir, the 'ol Recall King definitely has a bug problem. Great material for another story in Design News' "Made by Monkeys" section.

Meanwhile, one of Toyota's many irrate customers has created a blog - and a Facebook page - titled "Route 44 Toyota Sold Me A Lemon." Her 10/18/2013 blog post, "Dear Mr. Akio Toyoda:" calls out none other than the Godfather - er I mean the Prince - himself. Reminds me of a post I made several years ago.

Keep these 2013 recalls - failing engines, brakes, airbags, etc. ad nauseum - goin', Toyota. 'Specially those recalls of recalls when the initial recall failed to fix the recall problem. Keep it up. Ya might be able to set another record.

Is Akio the Prince... or the Godfather?

"Toyota President Akio Toyoda, known as 'the prince' in Japan..."

Prince or Godfather? The jury - federal grand - is still out on that one, but I'm leanin' toward the latter. As the death count increases, evidence points to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of sweetheart deals between Toyota and NHTSA, revolving doors resulting in blocked safety investigations, and the intentional witholding of stuff Toyota was legally required to release in accordance with lawsuits filed against them by crash victims. Big stuff.  Stuff about vehicle design and testing, complete with out of court settlements motivated by a desire to keep incriminating information quiet. And just for good measure, the Securities and Exchange Commission has jumped into the fray, demanding to know more about what Toyota has been tellin' investors. Whew. That's enough to raise anyone's eyebrows.

Equally alarming - now that a few investigations are under way - it seems we're gettin' a daily dose of heretofore unheard of defects, along with downright unnerving accounts of NHTSA's response to consumer complaints. Even Apple's Steve Wozniak got the cold shoulder when he complained about sudden unintended acceleration in his Prius.

With sales a sufferin', Toyota is comin' up with better offers for customers affected by current recalls, and plans to offer some spectacular incentives to attract buyers. Okay. But somehow, this whole thing reminds me of a movie I once saw about a family run business that got its way by makin' offers people just couldn't refuse...