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I wonder if the frame failure was design defect or a manufacturing defect.

It would be interesting to know how much load they were carrying and if that promoted the failures.

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Who cares if it was design or manufacturing when the end result for the consumer is the same? People buying these trucks are expecting and overbuilt truck that can work.

The loads were no more then the ones on the new dodge trucks that are so far uneffected.

These new trucks could be the undoing of Toyota if they keep this crap up. I can tell you that looking at the Toyota lot last weekend when I testdrove an fj it was about the only thing on the lot I would consider buying.

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I don't think anyone has dogged Toyota for it's design of the new Tacoma and new Tundra more than me over the last few years. Especially the Dana designed and built C-channel frames.

I'm just trying to be nice.

Toyota has a unique problem among companies. It is simply too popular. Too big. And they are afraid of wiping out the U.S. auto industry. This has been discussed before.

Toyota has a reputation for quality that will die hard, just like the U.S. cars reputation for crap will die hard.

So, considering those two facts, there just isn't a lot of motivation to overbuilt their vehicles. I said overbuild as opposed to built a decent vehicle, because that's what made Toyota what it is. Especially with their 4x4s and SUVs. While they made good reliable vehicles, it was the fact that the vehicles specifications and design parameters far exceeded their normal expected use, that put them far and above other makes.

There was no reason to design engines that last 300,000 or 400,000 miles or to sell trucks in the U.S. as half ton models with 1 ton frames, or to sell in the U.S. an SUV called the Land Cruiser that was designed for the most extreme and heavy duty use to people who would likely never drive them off road. But they did, because they were trying to prove something to Americans and gain market share through reputation.

Now that they have, they are about to literally wipe out the entire American auto industry and Toyota fears a backlash if this happens. Not to mention, that Japan has more interest in securing our economy than any other country on the planet, since they have more invested here and in our dollar than any other country.

So, with all that said, I'm not the least bit surprised that Toyota is making vehicles that have problems and don't live up to their historical quality standard. Even so, the Toyotas are probably still far better than the other makes.

But simply put, they don't make them like they used too, and as long as Toyota doesn't have the motivation to go back to it's old ways, they never will.

Of course, none of this applies to its other markets, which is exactly why they get different models than North America. The models that we wish we had instead.

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