current events 6

Source- BBC news, Americas section
date- 16/4/2010

who is involved
Toyota, all other Japanese car manufacturers, consumer reports, US consumers, US congress

Summary
In addition to previous recalls, Toyota is now recalling 600,000 Sienna minivans.
The problem effects vehicles from 1998 to present day, and entails the carrier cable which keeps the spare tire attached onto the car, due to prolong expose to road salt.
Additionally, the GX 460, a rear wheel drive SUV, had to be recalled due to a "safety risk" reported by consumer reports, prompting the testing of other Toyota SUVs and the Rav4.
This brings the recall total up to 8 million cars.

Significance
With the further recall of Toyota cars, the dominance of Toyota and Japanese car manufacturers as a whole is cast further in doubt.
Additionally, this article and the many others like it show how much more likely a problem is to gain attention once it catches the public eye. While there have been unnaturally high recalls for Toyota cars over the past couple months, other manufactures such as Honda have had recalls as well over the same time period, however these have not gained nearly as much attention.

Opinion
Personally, i find the GX 460 suspension sorta silly. The problem is that, as a rear wheel drive, top heavy car, when turned extremely sharply, drifts rather awesomely.
This seems more like a the sort of thing any rear wheel drive car would do when it goes into a corner too fast.
I could see the car not being designed to under-steer being a problem for most of the people who are going to end up driving it, but by the same logic a Farrari should be recalled for doing the exact same thing.

Article
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8626668.stm