Recently, whenever Toyota has a quality issue Automotive News likes to suggest that this might severely damage their reputation.

The latest case: Toyota is recalling 3.6 million cars because the floormats might slide forward and snag the accelerator. Cases of “unintended acceleration” have caused some accidents and even a few deaths, so they can be very serious.

If the recall fixes the problem, it won’t have a lingering impact. If it doesn’t…ask Audi.

At any rate, this is a safety problem, not a quality problem. Toyota’s quality reputation won’t be significantly harmed by stories in the press all by themselves. Instead, reputations for reliability (or lack thereof) begin with the experiences of people and their close friends and family. As long as many car owners aren’t having bad experiences with Toyota’s cars, their reputation for building reliable cars is safe.

It would help if Toyota went out of its way to take care of those people who do have problems with its cars. Unfortunately, what I’m hearing from Toyota owners suggests that their customer care is, if anything, worse than average.

On a positive note, Toyota has announced that it will soon offer extended warranties up to eight years or 125,000 miles, whichever comes first. Manufacturers’ extended warranties usually go up to 7/100. A willingness to go up to 8/125 with an extended warranty suggests that the cars are now being engineered to go this long without a major problem. Only Honda, which offers an 8/120 extended warranty, offers a warranty nearly this long.

Toyota’s move is consistent with car buyers’ expectations. Another thing I’ve learned from talking with hundreds of car owners: people increasingly expect a car to last at least 120,000 miles without major problems. Getting to 100,000 is no longer sufficient.