After reading the article about another Toyota recall...?

That's true that Toyota's reliability has slipped off a bit and what you say about the ford is true. Honestly you should ignore the floor mat problem ( not literally ) but I mean that this doesn't actually prove that Toyota is going bad. You should not doubt Toyota's quality just because of this, when it comes to engines, Toyota really makes very reliable engines. However I am not sure about Ford for that but even on fuel economy and safety, Toyota is still better than ford. Remember this, any Japanese cars such as Toyota, Honda, Nissan will hardly ever break down.