Toyota’s ‘Big Damage’ Brings Sony-Style Decline

After owning several Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles over the past 17 years, Randy Sterling traded in his Tacoma pickup this month for Ford Motor Co.’s F-150 truck.

“The recent problems with Toyota caused me to have a closer look at Ford,” said Sterling, a contractor in Blenheim, Ontario, referring to record recalls of more than 8 million vehicles, most for defects tied to unintended acceleration. “The recalls, how they’d treated some of their customers, it just concerned me.”