Critics Say That Toyota’s Smart Team Designed To Discredit Complaints

Toyota (NYSE:T) faced a public relations nightmare earlier this year when the foreign automaker was forced to issue a recall of over six million cars. The company issued the recall over an accelerator issue that caused the gas pedal to become stuck. Reports of uncontrolled acceleration further hurt the image of the company. A spokesperson announced the creation of a new “smart team” to look over potential accelerator problems.

Smart Team – An Attempt To Discredit Consumers

The smart team at Toyota dealerships are supposed to look over the car and spot any potential problems. Critics believe that the creation of the smart team is an attempt to deflect the criticisms that have been leveled at the Japanese car company. The public image of the company suffered when several high-ranking officials warned Toyota not to keep the problems with the accelerator a secret.

SMART stands for swift market and research analysis team. When a customer complains of accelerator problems, the team gets sent out to investigate. The decision to publicly unveil this team has changed the legal strategy from being defensive to more confrontational. A company spokesperson said that Toyota has every right to discredit claims of accelerator problems that customers fraudulently report.

Defense Or Outright Falsehoods

Toyota representatives have appeared before congressional committees and hired testing firms to help spot problems with their products. The new strategy may backfire on the company, as it may be seen as an attempt to spread outright falsehoods, according to Los Angeles Times reporters, Ralph Vartabedian and Ken Bensinger. The public unveiling of the SMART teams may not have been the boon that executives expected. The formation of the team comes before the conclusion of any scientific studies and shortly after the federal government hired experts to look into the sudden acceleration problems of some Toyota and Lexus cars.