Subaru went without e-mail for several days because its server was in an area affected by blackouts. Now the server gets a dedicated power generator.
Mazda, long assumed to be out of harm's way in seismically quiet western Japan, is putting its earthquake plan in writing and stepping up disaster drills.
Mitsubishi and Suzuki have the bulk of their operations along the Tokai region's sliver of flatland next to the sea. Now they are getting more serious about tsunami risk.
Mitsubishi is studying facility relocation -- including its car pools near the coast.
Suzuki decided to invest ¥50 billion, or about $618.5 million, to build a technical center and assembly plant farther inland, out of a tsunami's reach. The r&d center opens in 2016, the plant in 2017.
"With the lesson learned from the earthquake which hit Japan in March 2011, Suzuki will disperse the risks from the anticipated Tokai earthquake, assumed to occur in the Tokai district, the area where Suzuki's hub is concentrated," the company said when announcing the move.
Most Suzuki facilities are about two miles from the Pacific Ocean, and some are only 220 yards from the shore.
Another consideration for Suzuki: The nearby Hamaoka nuclear power plant.
Suzuki's Sagara assembly and engine plant lies less than 12 miles away. If Hamaoka gets whacked by a quake -- as the Fukushima nuclear plant was last March -- Suzuki's operations there could be swallowed by a no-go radiation zone.
Chairman Osamu Suzuki bemoaned his company's risky neighborhood last year, telling reporters, "We need to scatter because we are trapped."
"But we don't have enough money to relocate all of them at once," Suzuki said.
The quake broadsided balance sheets.
Toyota, Honda and Subaru expect operating profit to tumble in the fiscal year ending March 31. Mazda warns it will swing to a loss.
Much of that financial damage is done by the yen's surge against the dollar and euro. But the quake alone cost Japan's seven biggest automakers a combined $5.6 billion over the fiscal years ended March 2011 and March 2012.