When it rains, my car gets wet, the inside and the outside. And after a while of course it starts to smell. This has been a problem for a while. Trouble is, we’ve just come out of a two-year drought, and by the time I figured out I had a systematic problem that the dealer’s repairs had not fixed, the warranty had of course expired.
“You need a new car,” my brother says, as he quietly listens to my story. (He’s shockingly patient when I share such complaints — the physician in him no doubt.)
“This might be a good time to buy a Toyota,” he says, referring to all the recalls Toyota is issuing and the public spanking they’re getting in the press. Prices are sure to fall. A perfect opportunity for a picky cheapskate like me.
But there’s one problem.
Not only am I cheap, not only am I picky, but I believe in science and the scientific approach to problem solving. I believe in collecting data and forming a hypothesis that explains the problem and in testing your hypothesis against the data. But Toyota evidently believes, like so much of the rest of our culture, that science is not so much about hypotheses and data but rather about new-and-shiny stuff. Science to them seems to be more about how to plausibly deny responsibility (or worse, conceal it) without really fixing anything.
So no. I on second thought this is not a good time to buy a Toyota. Not because I would fear for my life if I were in one, but rather because in my not so humble opinion, their behavior represents everything in our 21st century culture that has run so completely off the rails.
Life is not all about PR. Life is not all about spin. Facts are important. Words to matter. And I hope they get raked over the coals when they go before Henry Waxman’s committee.
In the meantime, I will not buy a Toyota. And as a result, I’m back to breathing deeply the gathered gloom in my car, because right now outside it’s raining snowing.