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A report released today by Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business found that despite the 8 million Toyota vehicles recalled since October 2009, current Toyota owners are not yet wavering in their support of or satisfaction with the company.

Compared with the owners of other vehicles, the Toyota owners agreed more strongly, on a scale where 0 meant “completely disagree” and 10 meant “completely agree,” that:

• Toyota appropriately handled issues with the brake-pedal recall.
• This incident is an outlier.
• Toyota typically has a strong reputation for quality.
• The recall shows Toyota’s commitment to customer safety.

The brand insulation effect is also seen in Toyota owners’ stronger belief that other automakers are equally lax when it comes to consumer safety. In contrast, they don’t believe that domestic automakers such as GM, Ford and Chrysler are catching up to Toyota and Honda in either safety or reliability.

“If Toyota does return to its traditional focus of product quality and safety, it will claw its way out of this recall,” Dholakia said. “It might lose some sales in the short run, but Toyota owners say they are still likely to buy a Toyota in the future.”

When Toyota owners were asked to rate on the same 0-to-10 scale whether they would consider Toyota if they were to buy a new vehicle today, their ratings averaged an 8, whereas other automobile owners’ ratings averaged a 4.

Provided by Rice University (news : web, link).