I was reflecting myself on the brand damage this would have caused. We've always had a thing in our family that a Toyota is a safe, solid purchase. I must have shared that with 10 people or more over the years. Then in the last couple of days since this story broke, I've shared this with 2 or 3 people as a reason to be cautious about buying Toyota.

It baffles me why anyone ever thought this was a good idea. Even if they back down, I'm left with an uncomfortable feeling that Toyota has lost their way.

Brand loyalty is hard to earn and apparently easy to fritter away.

I have a 2009 Tacoma. I have been getting hounded for years to get a bigger truck, mainly to tote my kids.

It’s like the perfect year car. I still have a backup camera (in the rear view mirror) and automatic windows but it’s otherwise a dumb car and simple 3 dial AC controls. I’ve even repainted it and replaced much of the trim/headlights etc.

It’s by far my favorite truck ever, minus the size, though it’s gotten me out of totally unreasonable situations and even was able to help pull my buddies 2500 diesel out of the woods. So he no longer makes fun of me for it.

With that said, yeah, if I can’t find a similar alternative (no computer dash, none of this type nonsense. ) I guess I’m looking at alternatives. Maybe I’ll get a 2019 tundra in a few years.

I believe I have subscription fatigue. I'm so very tired of all the little subscriptions, rather than "buying" things (such as it is). Part of that is the subscriptions that are easy to add but hard to remove, those really burned me out. Having the guy at my old Internet service say "I thought we were friends" when I called to cancel, really hit the wrong way.

I have two Toyotas and have been considering a third, if we give my wife's old car to our daughter when she starts driving. But this $8/mo for remote start really irked me. The idea of $8/mo for something I use a few times a year, that'd just stick in my craw.

I understand it in the case of cellular network sorts of features, but remote start doesn't seem like one of those.

They have ~15yr of being the official car of people who want to give off that upper middle class aura and moneyed commuters. Not having to seriously compete does crazy things to corporate decision making. This is likely only the tip of the bad idea iceberg.

Edit: You people need to compare MSRPs and check out what adorns the driveways of "nice" places before you tell me Toyota is the people's car.