Report: Toyota bragged about saving $100M by avoiding, limiting recalls
 

<p>Filed under: <a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/government-legal/" rel="tag">Government/Legal</a>, <a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/recalls-tsbs/" rel="tag">Recalls</a>, <a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/safety/" rel="tag">Safety</a>, <a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/toyota/" rel="tag">Toyota</a></p><img vspace="4" hspace="4" border="0" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2010/02/toyota-slide-safety.jpg" alt="" /><br />
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If you saved your company $1 million, you'd brag about it, right? How about $100 million? Certainly you'd be looking for a few pats on the back for such a massive sum of loot. A report in <em>The Detroit Free Press</em> reveals that Yoshimi Inaba, chairman and CEO of <a href="http://www.autoblog.com/make/toyota/">Toyota</a> Motors Sales in the U.S., allegedly did such bragging back on July 6, 2010, but the topic was "Wins for Toyota" and the subject was safety. <br />
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<em>The Freep</em> obtained the internal presentation on Sunday as Toyota handed over thousands of documents to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in advance of its February 24 hearing. The over $100 million in savings was spread across nine points outlined by Inaba in the presentation, which outlined savings obtained by delaying safety regulations and avoiding investigations.<br />
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Inaba's presentation states that the company saved $124 million with "added lead-time and phase in" for a side-impact airbag standard. There is also a bullet under the defects subheading that says the company saved $100 million by negotiating an equipment recall on the <a href="http://www.autoblog.com/model/camry">Toyota Camry</a> and <a href="http://www.autoblog.com/tag/es">Lexus ES</a>. <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_toyota_recall">Yahoo expands</a> on that bullet in a recent report, saying that the automaker limited the amount of vehicles affected by the 2007 recall to 55,000, saving 50,000 man-hours of labor. Other items mentioned in the internal presentation are the avoidance of an investigation for the <a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2009/04/29/reports-of-aggressively-rusting-toyota-pickup-frames-mounting/">Tacoma rust issue</a> and $11 million in savings by delaying a rule for tougher door locks on the Sienna.<br />
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While it's likely that there are similar documents floating around the halls of every major automaker, Toyota is under more scrutiny than normal after <a href="http://www.autoblog.com/toyota_recall/guide">three high-profile recalls</a> have severely damaged its once sterling reputation for quality and reliability. The company's official response to the discovery of this document is <a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2010/02/22/report-toyota-bragged-about-saving-100m-with-limited-recall/">after the jump</a>, we're likely to hear more about it when company CEO Akio Toyoda <a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2010/02/18/toyoda-officially-invited-to-attend-house-oversight-commitee-mee/">visits Washington</a> to answer questions from the Fed.<br />
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<em><strong><small>Tire d of Toyota recall news? Try out the <a href="http://www.autoblog.com/exclude/toyota+recall">recall-free version</a> of Autoblog.</small></strong></em><br />
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[Source: <a href="http://www.freep.com/article/20100221/BUSINESS01/100221019/1014/rss13">Detroit Free Press</a>]<p><a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2010/02/22/report-toyota-bragged-about-saving-100m-with-limited-recall/" rel="bookmark">Continue reading <em>Report: Toyota bragged about saving $100M by avoiding, limiting recalls</em></a></p><p style="padding:5px;backgr ound:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"><a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2010/02/22/report-toyota-bragged-about-saving-100m-with-limited-recall/">Report: Toyota bragged about saving $100M by avoiding, limiting recalls</a> originally appeared on <a href="http://www.autoblog.com">Autoblo g</a> on Mon, 22 Feb 2010 09:27:00 EST. Please see our <a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/">terms for use of feeds</a>.</p><h6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"></h6><a href=http://www.freep.com/article/20100221/BUSINESS01/100221019/1014/rss13>Read</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2010/02/22/report-toyota-bragged-about-saving-100m-with-limited-recall/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry">Permalink</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://www.autoblog.com/forward/19367337/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email">Email this</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2010/02/22/report-toyota-bragged-about-saving-100m-with-limited-recall/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry">Comments</a>

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