There are many stories suggesting that Toyota sales will suffer long-term damage because of the accelerator problem. But I'm with Justin Newman, a 2008 Toyota Avalon owner whom The Sun interviewed yesterday. "I don't see a single safety issue as a necessary indicator of a corporate trend," Newman said.

A car has maybe 2,000 parts. The hazards of chance and time mean that every now and then an important one will break down, even for a company with an excellent record for quality and safety.Given Toyota's long, impressive record of delivering great cars, it seems like this will be treated as a glitch. A sticky accelerator isn't a systemic issue like metal parts that exceed tolerances. Brand loyalty to Toyota can be measured -- the premium buyers are willing to pay over similar cars made by Ford and GM. Toyota took a while to address this problem, but it should come out of this with most of its reputation intact.

"Integrity doesn't imply a perception of error-free performance," William J. McEwen writes in Married to the Brand. "Instead, it strongly suggests that: -- errors and problems will be rare rather than frequent, and -- identified problems will be acknowledged."