As a mechanical engineer, I can confidently say that unless you're designing, testing, and building very similar vehicles/working on very similar projects, there is little you can say that's of any value over anyone else, degreed or not. My degree and 15 years of industry experience has given me no special insight into this vehicle's design or reliability. Yee old arguments from authority.
First 550 off the line (1 Viewer)
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As a mechanical engineer, I can confidently say that unless you're designing, testing, and building very similar vehicles/working on very similar projects, there is little you can say that's of any value over anyone else, degreed or not. My degree and 15 years of industry experience has given me no special insight into this vehicle's design or reliability. Yee old arguments from authority.
You dismissed Dan's real world actual experience. He has real-world hands-on experience with the 250. Who do you think was driving the other cruisers in the original publications?
My brother in law is a plant process engineer (six sigma/TPS) that worked at TMMTX as a contract job although not for the stamping tooling this story involves. But I guess they discussed it and he told me the story:
The consulting company that was hired to help advance the process of stamping tooling changeover speed. My memory of the story went something like this: about 15 years ago the consulting firm was asked to help speed up the stamping change over and they started by doing research on other factories and how fast the were able to do it. The fastest other factory they could find was a VW? factory in Germany that could do it in 4 hours or 6 hours or something on that order of time. Toyota was already doing it in 8 minutes and wanted to do it in 3 minutes. The team went back and said, "why do you want it to be faster, you're already the fastest in the world by a huge margin and it doesn't look like anyone is even trying to catch up? You're asking us to figure out a process to cut the time by more than half when you're already doing it so much faster than anyone else." And the answer was, "we don't really care what everyone else is doing unless they're doing it better than us so we can learn from them. Otherwise, we think it can be done faster and that's what we want to do. Can we make it happen?" And off they went to work on it.
I think this is what is so out of character for the long time between model updates and long delays on the BOF models. Toyota is known as being exceptionally nimble in new product development and going from concept to production faster than everyone else. The long delays are out of character. Lean manufacturing can also result in fragility. In a dis-integrating global economy the less vertical integration a company has the more exposed they are to the changes.
That’s actually a ridiculous allegation, made even more ridiculous when simple words were used to say the opposite. If I’m guilty of anything it’s singing offkey from the approved hymn book. No apologies for that.
The general point however remains that nobody should expect impartial, unbiased or even critical information from anyone dependent on any company’s marketing department for any product. That includes star struck selfie obsessed youtubers.
So far Toyota has done well marketing to the loyal fan base so let’s hope reality comes close to the slogans.
Broken Record... You like to talk I'll give you that.
A more effective retort would have been to point out where I “dismissed Dan's real world actual experience” but LOL – have a good day.
Does anyone else do the same – different vehicles with different bodies, engines, transmissions, etc. on the same assembly line at the same time?
Fast change over from one to another is one thing but this video seems on a different level.
After watching the full video - the more I see the more I like the 250 visually. Great body lines. I think it'll age very well if the engines are as good as I hope they are. Style wise it's a modern classic.
I also thought it was interesting how ubiquitous the 4Runners were in the factory. Almost every shot had them in it. They build about 300k units per year in that factory and the 4Runner accounts for about 150k. Roughly half of the factory output is 4Runners. It's surprising a bit to me just how large a share of the factory the 4Runner accounts for and how popular it is considering that it's only for limited markets and was basically an afterthought when it was originally designed. I really liked mine and would buy another one in a heartbeat if I didn't need the extra space and towing of a truck.
I also thought it was interesting how ubiquitous the 4Runners were in the factory. Almost every shot had them in it. They build about 300k units per year in that factory and the 4Runner accounts for about 150k. Roughly half of the factory output is 4Runners. It's surprising a bit to me just how large a share of the factory the 4Runner accounts for and how popular it is considering that it's only for limited markets and was basically an afterthought when it was originally designed. I really liked mine and would buy another one in a heartbeat if I didn't need the extra space and towing of a truck.
Not more or less happy than before but usually pretty happy. Correcting false things doesn't really impact it either which way – and yes, ready to move on from the unnecessary personal silliness.
For anyone else that needed to look it up:
lo·qua·cious /lōˈkwāSHəs/
adjective: tending to talk a great deal; talkative.
For anyone else that needed to look it up:
lo·qua·cious /lōˈkwāSHəs/
adjective: tending to talk a great deal; talkative.
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- #51
My observations are not immune from being dismissed. 
Nope. It was primarily a tape-and-badges special edition, designed to cheaply drum up sales near the end of the product cycle.
No manufacturer is perfect.
The same could be said of those who USED to work for Toyota and offer opinions based on their past experience relating to new Toyota products.
The only difference in the suspension was the 2 row Heritage Edition 200 received different rear coil springs. Some additional interesting reading about the topic can be found in this thread from the 200 series section.
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- #56
History repeats itself in a fashion. The 80 Series had two different spring rates for vehicles with and without third row. In the case of the LX450 (which was a three-row), two-row springs were used in order to "improve" the ride.
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- #57
Another interesting bit of LX450 history. The other difference between the 450 and the 80 was shock valving. Again to give the 450 a "better" ride. Quite a few owners complained about how mushy they were. The fix was to replace the shocks with 80 shocks... Problem solved.
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- #58
I admit... I was in the 62.
That's a little different potentially but I never said otherwise.
However I work in an industry dominated by industry standards, company standards, and best practices. I could have left the company 5 years ago and still be 97.3% accurate about the way they are doing things bc their standards and procedures haven't changed.
What you are seeing is just one manufacturing line— the BOF line.
Tahara operates 3 complete manufacturing lines.
The place is the size of a city. It’s massive with its own dedicated port facility….
