Documents: Toyota boasted saving $100M on recall

Documents: Toyota boasted saving $100M on recall

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100222/ap_on_bi_ge/us_toyota_recall

Wow, are they done or what?

 

ridicilous

 

Talk about bad PR. I think the only thing worse would be either having a sex tape of the president (of Toyota) released on the net or a tape of him making fun of stupid American crash test dummies.

 

Almost the opposite really. I sell cars at a Chevy dealership. About a month ago they came out with an extra $1000 for Toyota owners or 0% for 60 months on select models. For ones that didn’t already have 0% on them, that could be a really nice savings, especially because Toyota and Honda tend not to offer 0% that much(at least what I’ve seen).

I haven’t had even one person come in with a Toyota in the past month because of all of this, and I live outside of DC where there is a lot of diversity and a lot of Toyota’s around. I don’t think any other salesperson has either. In fact a few people have actually told me they were just going to wait until this blows over and then buy one.

 

I guess we'll see. I own a Honda and my wife has a toyota (thankfully a minivan not affected by the recall -- at least not yet). I would still buy them but I'm guessing the "Buy American" thing will have a little more value over the next few years. As in "look what those Japanese guys tried to pull" (as if GM or Ford wouldn't do the same).

 

Buy American?

First off, you are hardly buying American by buying a Chevy and I’m sure the same is true for Chrysler and Ford. Equinox’s and Camaro’s are made in Canada (I guess that’s ok though) with Korean transmissions or engines, numerous other models have Korean and Mexican transmissions and engines. The Aveo is 100% Korean. It all says it right there on the window sticker. Conversely, Honda’s and Toyota’s are mostly made right here in good ole’ America.

Secondly, why would you expect non-American’s to buy American cars? This country is now full of a ton of people from other country’s that will never buy an American car. It doesn’t matter if Chevy or Ford came out with a car that got 100 MPG, 5 star crash test, Consumer Digest’s greatest car ever made, and all for $15,000, there are plenty of people in this country that will never buy it.

For the record, I started selling cars about 6 months ago and I have been pleasantly surprised at the quality of Chevy’s. They seem like they are really well made. My dealership also sells Chrysler and Honda, and Chevy has really flexed their muscles with their current lineup. Obviously I’m a bit biased though. I am not really a car tech guy, so I don’t know much about the components and stuff, but I predict that in another 10 years, all of the car manufacturers will be broke again. Not because of anything else but the simple fact that the cars they are making are too good. Just the way they make them now, they are made to last a long time with very little maintenance.

 

Its nice to hear your views.
The true test weather the Chevys are good is to look at the resale values at 100K miles or 5 years.
Right now a GM car with 100K is almost worthless while a Honda or Toyota will get 2-3K.

Right now Chevys match most other cars for quality in the first 50K miles. This is where GM has done well.

 

Planned obsolescence.

 

Yes, but in my very limited experience in the auto industry, it seems like Honda and Toyota are just 10-15 years behind the times. That used to be the American car company’s mantra, but not anymore. They lost all that market share in the 90’s due to the imports coming out with cars that lasted a long time. I have a junky old 92 Camry with 240k miles on it. It doesn’t look the greatest, but it runs forever. How much do you think Toyota is making off of me now? Nothing. So now they lessened the quality, which the consumer reports and such have caught on to in the past few years.

So Toyota is just what GM was 10 years ago. GM on the other hand has realized that they have to make far superior cars now to get back the market, but I’m not so sure it’s working because of all of the people in America that will still never buy an American car. Look at what you are buying and compare the two. You get more features, better syling (subject to opinion), better warranty, better MPG(look it up), usually better special financing, and all at the same or better price with GM over Toyota.

 

Congrats on the job Sandy, I wish you the best of luck.


I've also noticed that the American cars are improving in quality and that (at least) Toyota is really just hanging back and counting on their brand. About a year ago, Toyota released these really dumb commercials praising NOTHING but their brand. A bunch of commercials just saying how reliable they were, they were ridiculous and pushy. Then Toyota has also produced a bunch of cars that showed their disrespect for customers, like the hybrid Lexus SUV. Toyota has also had the luxury of ripping off its customers the most with high prices and low incentives. Overall, I get the feeling they are becoming as arrogant and distant from their customers as the Big 3 were.

The feeling that I get is that car quality is sketchy, and really depends on the model. Every manufacturer can have models with bad quality and you just have to be careful but also realize even GM can put out a bunch of great vehicles.