Toyota, which has already had to deal with a string of embarrassing recalls over the last couple of years, has now hit problems with its most important model launch in the United States.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Owners of its new full-size Tundra pickup – which competes with the top-selling Ford F-series – have reported engine failures and the automaker may recall versions equipped with 5.7-litre V8s to replace the engines, a company spokesman told the Detroit News.
Industry experts have told the paper that Toyota is extremely vulnerable to negative publicity because of its prominence in the industry, and that the recall could affect residual values.
The Detroit News said Toyota had hoped to use the new Tundra to double its share of the lucrative full-size pickup market, one of the few segments still dominated by US automakers.
Toyota officials have characterised the Tundra launch as the most important introduction in the company’s history in the United States, the paper noted.
The Detroit News noted the launch has suffered delays and disappointments – the Tundra achieved lower frontal crash scores than domestic rivals such as the Ford F-150 and Dodge Ram.
Company spokesman Bill Kwong told the paper Toyota realised in February that there was a problem with the camshafts delivered by a supplier for the 5.7-litre engine, and the automaker ordered the necessary changes to production.
Toyota has nonetheless seen 20 cases of engine failure in trucks equipped with 5.7-liter engines and is now studying how many of the 30,000 5.7-litre engines it built are affected, the report said.
The truck is built in Princeton, Indiana, and San Antonio, Texas, using engines from Alabama.
The Detroit News said automaker hopes to sell 200,000 new Tundras this year, compared with 124,508 previous-generation models in 2006, in a segment where American manufacturers account for more than 90% of full-size pickup sales, which reached 2.2m units in 2006.
