A friend of mine likes to tell a story about how the first car he bought in the 1990s was a brand new Toyota Corolla that stalled in the middle of the 101 freeway in the San Francisco bay area, leaving him feeling very vulnerable and causing him to swear off all Toyota (TM) cars. He has since then purchased a number of cars made by Ford (F) and appears to be happy with them.
I had personally experienced a stalling issue with a new 2000 Toyota Camry that would manifest itself only when I exited a freeway and was stopped at a red light without manually turning the cruise control off. The dealer could not figure out why this was happening and the problem went away after a few months. In contrast I had very good luck with two Fords and still sometimes regret trading in my reliable 35th anniversary Mustang for an IS 350. Both these incidents occurred during a period of time when Toyota enjoyed the unblemished status of being one of the safest car companies and went on to surpass General Motors as the largest car company in the world. With two cars made by Toyota parked in my driveway (the IS 350 is affected by the recall), I have to say that over the years I have been satisfied with the quality and reliability of these cars.