When it comes to corporate disasters, the problems with Toyota’s gas pedals is a doozy. From a PR perspective, this one ranks right up there with Union Carbide (Bhopal), Johnson and Johnson (Tylenol), and of course Ford/Firestone (Explorer). Which makes it all the more curious as to how Toyota seems to be dragging their feet in their response to the problem.

I’ve done some writing for TheTruthAboutCars.com (an excellent site if you’re interested in…well…the TRUTH about cars), and I’ve been monitoring their take on the Pedalgate thing. As usual TTAC goes beyond the hype and headlines, and investigates what’s REALLY going on. Seems that Toyota uses two designs for their pedals, from two manufacturers. To be fair, Toyota designs them, then farms out the manufacture to contractors. But what’s ironic is that one design (made of plastic) is trouble-free, and the other (metal) one is fraught with problems. Even more interesting is that there’s plenty of evidence that these problems date back to 2007 or 2008, and that Toyota has known about the problems since they began.

There are two questions here. The obvious one is “What did Toyota know, and when did they know it?” The less obvious one (to non-marketing types) is “Why isn’t Toyota being pro-active in their response to this problem?” So far, Toyota’s response has been positively tone-deaf. After an initial, aggressive move to stop production/sales of affected models, Toyota’s made one wrong-headed move after the next.

If Toyota wants to either turn lemons into lemonade – or at this point, at least do no (further) harm to their rep, they need to meet this thing head-on. For instance, stop screwing around with trying to repair or modify the pedal design that doesn’t work, and just replace all the existing faulty designs with the model that’s trouble-free. Next, they need to mount an aggressive PR campaign to explain what they are doing, and why they are doing it. A forensic examination of their design processes wouldn’t hurt either. And finally, they need to look at what they can do to keep current customers from becoming former customers. Maybe free scheduled-maintenance for the next three years, if done at a Toyota dealership. Or a gas card. Something. Something that says “we’re sorry we screwed up, and value our customers more than our bottom line.”

Will Toyota get it? I’m frankly not sure. Given their rep for savvy marketing, I never thought any problem like this would have gotten this far down the path of cluelessness. But it has. And as the de facto industry leader, the way they ultimately deal with this problem will cast a long shadow over the automobile biz as a whole. Toyota…the next move is yours.

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Addendum: Just after I posted this blog entry, Obama’s Secretary of Transportation claimed that he’d “misspoken” earlier in the day, when he advised Toyota owners of affected vehicles to NOT drive them, but demand repairs from their dealers. Nice to know that the Obama Administration’s responses to a national crisis is consistently ambivalent.

I’m also told that the new rules on blogging mean I need to disclose any connections I might have to Toyota. I have none, unless you count owning a RAV4 back around 1996 for all of about 6 months, and dating someone who drives a Camry. I own no stock in Toyota – or any other automobile company for that matter – and I am not a compensated spokesman for any company with any connection to Toyota. So there.