Is Toyota headed down the toilet?

Once upon a time I loved Toyota. Though I’ve flirted with other brands — Fiat (something I still can’t explain) and BMW (now driven by the ex) — I’ve always regarded Toyota as the most rational choice when it came to choosing wheels. Solid, reliable. A little more exciting than it used to be, but that’s not the reason you buy one: you buy it because it’s a Toyota.

So why am I driving a new Hyundai?

It took me months to decide on a car. Long story short, after weighing up all my options, taking advice from everyone from David Bullard to my Facebook friends (the technical term is crowdsourcing), assessing factors such as reputation, after sales service, specs and performance, I went for a Hyundai i20 1.6. In terms of value for money, no other car in its class could compete.

I would have considered a Yaris if it came with a 1.6 engine. I’ve driven the Auris and the RAV4 and hated them both. Toyota just didn’t have what I was looking for, certainly not in my price range. So my reasons for choosing a brand other than Toyota may have nothing to do with its record of reliability in South Africa. But I can’t help but read my desertion of the brand in the context of the problems the manufacturer is experiencing globally.

I just don’t trust Toyota the way I used to, and I’m not the only one. US Toyota resale values have declined. The share price is tanking and, inevitably, the jokes have started. You can click here for a collection of 80 Toyota jokes and counting, but some of the more popular ones include “Just driving my new Toyota. Chat later, can’t stop” and “Toyota is telling its customers for safety reasons they should stop driving their cars. Owners said ‘We’re trying!’ ”

(Perhaps Toyota should take over Standard Bank’s payoff line: Moving forward — which, in an ironic twist, has been the brand’s payoff line in the US since 2004.)

Yep, Toyota is in the dwang, and now that over 52 000 vehicles are being recalled in South Africa — and that it has been revealed that Toyota knew about steering problems in the Auris but kept quiet — what was an interesting global story now has local significance.

Toyota was the poster child for efficient manufacturing processes that seemed to manage the impossible, marrying low cost with good quality. Now, it seems that quality and reliability was sacrificed on the altar of growth.

The case studies will never again focus on how Toyota conquered the world, not convincingly anyway. Instead, they’ll focus on how Toyota conquered the world — and then lost it.

So, will this mess end up being the story of how to kill a great brand?

I don’t think a brand as powerful as Toyota will experience dramatic declines in sales. Ford was at the sharp end of publicity during the early noughties thanks to its problems with the Explorer, but that doesn’t appear to influence whether motorists choose to buy a Ford now.

But however this current crisis is resolved, Toyota will never be the same. Its name, previously beyond reproach, has been irrevocably tarnished. Read the following statement taken from a press release by Toyota’s ad agency, Draftfcb, explaining why they came up with Buddy the talking dog:

“Buddy was developed to remind consumers that Toyota vehicles are ‘loyal’ and will never let their owners down, trust being the one quality Toyota truly owns, the one characteristic its competitors can’t challenge it on.”

Did you pull a face? Chuckle at the irony of how trust is the one characteristic that Toyota has now lost? I did.

If a Toyota loyalist like me can be persuaded to switch to Hyundai, others can too. In a new twist on an old jingle: Everything keeps going wrong, Toyota.