Except loss of brand image and trust is more expensive.

Worst case scenario, they can just rebrand themselves.

Samsung does a lot of things: Cars, phones, refrigerators, TVs, life insurance... it's pretty diversified, so if there's a Samsung washing machine recall, I don't think that Koreans will cancel their life insurance policies.

Did you know Kenmore washing machines are actually LG? I didn't either until now... it's all too easy to just do a rebrand or latch onto somebody else's as a supplier, if things go nuclear.

To say nothing of calling in the emergency PR salvaging operation (like Lenovo did just recently with their BIOS update that locked out Linux on its consumer ultrabooks -- just have the press deflect blame on Intel for not jumping through onerous hoops to support Lenovo's crazy single-drive RAID scheme on Linux, but I digress).

Like any typical customer buying a washing machine will know about this.

Like any shop selling washing machines will actually care.

Like any of us will remember about this six months from now.

Brand image is overrated. A lot of companies know that, and that's why they get away with all the shit they do.

Brand image is a marketing/PR problem, not a tech/engineering problem.

I was certain this was going to involve a Ford and a fuel tank.

Yes, and even after the Pinto fiasco, people still buy Ford vehicles in large numbers today. Their F-150 trucks are actually pretty solid.

Curiously, though Pinto is a synonym for unsafe car, it was almost exactly as safe as every other subcompact at the time. They were used as a test case for car safety. Ride in any tiny, cheap car and get hit by a truck and it isn't going to be pretty. Kind of unfair to Ford but that's history.

Except for the Pinto's rear fuel tank that sets the entire car on fire if you get rear ended by ANY vehicle going ~30 MPH.

No more often than any other small car of that era.