I never claimed that Ford hadn't done the same things in the past or that Toyota's issues were different. But rather that you don't see equal reporting on Toyota's mishaps.
And I think you helped that point along -- you know precisely the problems that Ford has had, but I'm willing to bet money that you hadn't heard a thing about the criminal investigations at Toyota. Very few people have, and it's current news, only a couple weeks old. When Ford did it it was HUGE news, front page everywhere and headlines for weeks. When Toyota gets the exact same thing, it was never mentioned in any major news establishment and was relegated to the backs of the Business section of local newspapers at best.
And I referred to recall numbers because that's what the Media does. Until recently, that was much to the detriment of the US industry simply because they sold so many more cars than the competition so they could easily have an announcement of a "500,000 car recall" whereas others didn't sell that many cars in an entire year, let alone one model. Percentage of total sold fleet is a much better metric and Severity would of coure be ideal, but not easily quantifiable. In regards to Toyota, their severity would be rather high as well. The Prius had a problem which would cause total loss of steering at highway speeds. Hundreds of thousands of Toyotas had a problem with airbags that would cause them to not fully inflate in the event of an accident. Neither of which I would consider very minor.
