Toyota on the mend?

sellaturcica

Come on guys- the reason car sales people are incompetent is because most of them are the same chuckle headed losers that work at Best Buy or Circuit City. At some point, consumers decided that the sales experience didn't matter and that price did- and this is what we get, a bunch of incompetents who don't really care or know what they're doing, other than how to stick it to Joe Average ignoramus buyer in order to make their dealer principal happy. Your goal as a consumer should be to stick it to these hacks as much as possible, and make sure they know that you know more than they do.

dtownfb

Wow! I didn't think the asylum was open today!

sellaturcica: I think you have successfully insulted over half the posters on Edmunds! Congratulations!

ruking1

Sour grapes for sure. Probably wasn't able to make the cut at either place or get a MAC JOB.

PF_Flyer

Let's not turn things personal here please... :sick:

hypnosis44

"I have NEVER met a Toyota salesman at a dealership that was well informed of their vehicles. Of course I am not including kdhspyder our well informed resident salesman."
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I've been shopping cars for 45 years and talked to at least 50 sales people. Sales people run the gamut from horrible to fabulous, regardless of dealership of country of origin. I have three Toyota dealerships in my area - the same holds true there as well and depends on phases of the moon and day of the week.

ruking1

When I go to ANY dealership, as I am a car "nut" and do not see going to a car dealer as a place slightly below going to the dentist for root canal, I usually state if I am in a buying mode or (which is 99.9%) NOT. Then I let the sales person decide how they want to spend their time. 99% of the time they let me do my thing.

hypnosis44

"Come on guys- the reason car sales people are incompetent is because most of them are the same chuckle headed losers that work at Best Buy or Circuit City."
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There are a lot of underemployed people, including those with degrees, working at the places your mentioned. It is more a reflection of the collapse of the American job market than anything about their abilities.

Kirstie_H

...AND, might these Toyota salespeople cause (and I quote) "troubles ahead?
(↑ subtle allusion to the topic title)

lemko

Toyota salespeople could cause trouble ahead for Toyota as they are the most arrogant, aggressive shark salespeople I've ever encountered. Toyota could be the best dang car in the world and I'd never set foot in any of their dealerships after the experience I had when I looked at a Camry with my girlfriend. I'm sure others have encountered this "we're doing you a favor selling you a Camry" attitude.

gagrice

That was exactly my point in mentioning the sales staff I have encountered or did not find in 4 different Toyota dealerships. Two dealerships I did not see a salesman after walking around the lot and through the showroom, sitting in several cars. Hard to sell a car with NO salespeople. The store closest to me I get greeted every time I visit. They just do not have a good handle on their products. I have good and bad experiences at other brands also. Both BMW and Mercedes had no one to deal with. Recently my best experience was at the Acura and Cadillac dealerships. Both greeted me in the lot and were very well informed on the vehicles they were selling.

louiswei

lemko, let's not kid ourselves here. It's not like if that saleperson you met is the most friendly one you would get a Camry anyway. We all know how you think about imports...

lemko

Oh, I wasn't looking to buy a Camry. It was my girlfriend who wanted to check one out. She will never look at a Toyota again after that experience.

nippononly

that salespeople run the gamut from totally clueless and offensive to mostly inoffensive at dealerships across the country, regardless of brand. Can we please agree on that?

The reason I say that is I think the "salespeople are terrible" argument cannot be applied more to Toyota than other brands. In fact, the division mostly seems to be between small local dealerships (friendly, informed, helpful salespeople and higher prices) and large corporate dealers (low low cutthroat pricing and a sales attitude to match).

The only dealerships where I can honestly say I have never been met by ANYONE who wasn't courteous and well-informed is Saturn. And I have shopped ALL the brands over the years. Kudos to Saturn for that, which is why they will now dominate North American sales once their revamped line-up (including Astra) is in place! :-)

A long-term difficulty for Toyota is that they are going to be spending a TON of money in the next five years building North American plants, based on the sales surge they have had in the last five, and if the economy stagnates as it seems like it will, or the sales surge slows down for some other reason, they could be over-extended. Given that they have pretty shrewd planners at the top of that company, I hope they have the worst-case scenario in mind so they do NOT become over-extended.

grbeck

...of the dealers were the key to a brand's success, then Saturn would be number one, and Toyota would be sinking. (Honda, too, as it also rates poorly in most surveys measuring customer satisfaction with the sales process.)

It hasn't worked out that way, so apparently many customers are willing to put up with a less-than-stellar sales experience to get the vehicle that they want.

A bigger problem for Toyota is the ad I saw on television the other night. It was pushing Corollas with...a $500 rebate, boldly flashed on the screen. Following Detroit into Rebate Hell is hardly a good idea.

ruking1

Well they have had the longer term goal to be "king of the hill" over the Detroit monikers. Now it seems they are taking the good with the bad.

kdhspyder

That $500 has been in effect, on and off, for the last 3+ years. But what's interesting is that it doesn't change!! It stays at $500, unless like last summer it goes away as the inventory shrinks.

All Toyota's have had incentives on them in varying degrees over the last 7 years. FJ's excluded they're still too new.

ruking1

For me 3 years ago, (2004/5 ) it was not enough to seal the deal for a commute car. (Corolla)

imidazol97

The Toyota salespeople I've talked to suffer from "smug alert" syndrom. Like in the Simpson's program about Prius owners.

210delray

... I wish we'd stop these nonsensical generalizations.

Nippononly's post was spot on. OTOH, a certain Buick/Cadillac owner will forever bewail the poor treatment received at the hands of a SINGLE Toyota salesman.

I only have to assume that Toyota has NO troubles if we keep on with these generalizations about their salespeople.

imidazol97

>OTOH, a certain Buick/Cadillac owner will forever bewail the poor treatment received at the hands of a SINGLE Toyota salesman.

So you're trying to say that it didn't happen? Or are you just trying to minimize the truth? That would be a certan Toyota owner (multiple)...

As for No troubles, read the discussions here on Edmunds.

Just don't read my posts from now on. Your response made no sense.

210delray

I'm not saying it didn't happen, but it was a SINGLE experience (not yours, btw), from someone who extols the virtues of Buick and Caddy.

If a post is here, I'll read it (unless it's one of those really loooong single-paragraph ones).

Yes, I'm a very satisfied Toyota owner, thank you very much! But my 1977 Impala was fine when I owned it too.

And I do read about the "troubles," but the Edmunds hosts have repeatedly said the such boards can't be used as statistical indicators of reliability. Why? By their nature ("problems and solutions"), they will draw those with gripes (or grapes, as in sour). Like the people complaining about "thumps" from their Camry gas tanks, wanting to make a federal case of it (literally, by complaining to NHTSA).

In a similar vein, I don't think the pro-GM faction would like it if I cherry-picked some sad "dex clog" stories from disgruntled GM car owners.

nippononly

Just read my little Autoweek Daily Drive blurb after a loooooong day, and it tells me that Toyota has put another $1000 incentive on the new Tundra, and this one applies to all models except the MegaCab.

The article goes on to say that since Toyota is trying to take GM and Ford head on, and since those automakers are so willing to liberally apply cash incentives to stay ahead in the game, Toyota has no choice but to follow suit. Being familiar with Toyota, what it hints to me is they invested too heavily in this Tundra project, so that now they have to betray their own values to make sure the Tundra is a sales success - there's too much riding on it to allow it to fail or slump, no matter the cost. I hope that is not the case, but that was always the peril of the thing. I still wonder why they are jumping in with rebates so early - there hasn't been full dealer stock for even two months yet...

Better to just cede the full-size truck market to GM and Ford and be done with it, than to let the Tundra become the rebate king of the hill after spending so much developing it. IMHO.

gagrice

Toyota has two problems to overcome with the Tundra. One, fleet sales are a very large part of Ford and GM truck sales. Toyota is not going to get into that market for several years. Old habits die hard. Second and the biggest problem with the new Tundra. It is one ugly truck. It makes the Dodge look half way decent. Maybe not Nissan Titan ugly. But ugly just the same. The new GM trucks are not as ugly as the last generation so Toyota has a double whammy to over come. Maybe their crew max will be successful as there are die hard Toyota fans. Time will tell. We have to wait a year to see if it is a success or failure.

nippononly

Well, beauty of course is in the eye of the beholder.

And I am not sure Toyota will ever get into the fleet game with the Tundra - they only built the San Antonio plant to produce 250K per year after all. But if the new model only makes the volume of the old model - 120K/year or so - I am sure this will be the first and last time Toyota tries to take on the domestics in full-size trucks.

And I REALLY hope it doesn't negatively impact the rest of the Toyota line-up, either in R&D dollars or in funding for future North American plant-building.

geo9

This was posted at another site:
Although we've barely passed mid-February, Toyota has already recalled 533,417 vehicles this year in a mix that, according to http://www.AutoRecalls.us, includes Tundras Sequoias and Camrys.
That puts Toyota on track to recall more than the over 1.76 million autos they recalled in the U.S. and Japan in 2006, and the 2.2 million they recalled in 2005 when they recalled
more cars than they built.

What's more, the current recall related to the Turdra trucks and Sequioa SUVs is similar to the same defect in 800,000 of the same vehicles in 2005.

Maybe somebody at Toyota isn't paying attention?

Hopefully the American consumers are.
Recall numbers by domestic companies (GM and Ford) so far this year are as follows: Ford, 128,163; Chevrolet,4,829; and Pontiac, 1,602. Chrysler - a German company masquerading as an American company with plans to start importing cars from China in 2008 - has recalled 77,432 vehicles so far in 2007.

kdhspyder

Post #353 of this thread...

Lets keep things in perspective.

Here are the actual figures from a report in the Detroit News. Link:
Maker : GM ... DCX ... Ford ... Toy
2004 .. 10.8 ... 5.8 ... 5.8 .. 1.1 ( Millions of vehicles )
2005 ... 5.0 ... 1.1 ... 6.0 .. 2.2
2006 ... 1.6 ... 2.4 ... 1.7 .. 0.8
Totals 17.4 ... 9.3 ... 13.5 .. 4.1

There is really nothing that can be gathered from these stats because recalls all relate to vehicles made in the past. One bad year ( GM ) skews all the figures.

Here's an explanatory link: ball joint recall

lemko

Single? There were FIVE of them surrounding my girlfriend trying to get her to buy that day. Not only that, they took the keys to her car and had to demand they give them back. They had us separated with me shoved off in a corner over by a 4Runner.

louiswei

Okay, now that's a LIE!!

:P

kdhspyder

No that makes sense. All 5 of them were going to share the $100 commission. Hyperbole possibly.

lemko

No, that was no lie. First was the guy who demo'd the car. He seemed cool at first, then some finance guy, then the GM and two other dudes standing behind him. They were so sure that she'd buy that day. They even tried to get her to lease. Hey, I was there. I never saw anything like that at any dealership before. Either they were nice or indifferent. Heck, even the Acura guy was cool. At Toyota, it was like being a rabbit thrown into a pen full of pit bulls.

louiswei

lemko, if that's true and I were your I would report that dealership to the Toyota NA corporate headquarter. However, I found something that's really sketchy...

then some finance guy

Finance guys don't come out to the showroom floor or the lot.

then the GM and two other dudes standing behind him

GM usually sits at the "Tower" and doesn't really interact with customers on the showroom floor. At least in the high volume dealership that's the case. I couldn't imaging the Toyota dealership that lemko went is a "low volume" dealership.

Hey, I was there.

Hey, it maybe the truth but just highly unlikely according to common sense and my own experience with several Toyota dealerships (5 to be precise).

lemko

This is the way it was at the other dealerships:

Chevrolet: Excellent! The guy was laid back, personable, and went out of his way to help my girlfriend. His name even was Mr. Nice.

Acura: Young guy. Really professional and courteous and took his time to explain everything even though he probably knew my girlfriend wouldn't buy that day.

Nissan: Pretty much the same as the Acura dealer.

Honda: We were pretty much ignored. My girlfriend was pretty dismayed by the high prices of the cars that didn't seem too special to her.

Chrysler: Guy was nice and let her take out a Chrysler Sebring. She didn't like the car.

Buick: Guy was professional and seemed honest. Didn't seem as personable as the Chevy guy.

210delray

With regard to the Toyota dealer, it was still a SINGLE experience at a SINGLE dealership.

If you go on the salesperson boards in Smart Shopper, you'll find sharks like that aren't limited to whatever manufacturer's name happens to be on the sign outside.

Along this line, have you read the "confessions" story where an Edmunds reporter goes undercover as a salesman?

lemko

I'll give you this much - the Camry seemed to be a well-assembled car and all seemed to go well with the demo. It all went to heck the second we went into the building. I didn't know you could report a dealership to the corporate headquarters. I didn't think about it at the time.

lemko

That was a great story.

210delray

It certainly doesn't hurt to try to report a bad experience, but unfortunately I think most manufacturers will say their hands are tied, because of state and local franchise laws. Only the truly bad players get weeded out, like those actually breaking laws (fraud, embezzlement, etc).

gagrice

I have no problem believing the story. I have gone to look at vehicles at the El Cajon Toyota dealership several times. They usually have 3-4 salesmen wandering the lot looking lonesome. The dealer I have visited twice in Hilo the same. Poway Toyota I wandered all over the lot and showroom, never saw a sales person. Same for the Toyota dealer in Kearney Mesa, CA. The El Cajon Toyota people are nice enough though poorly informed. I drove the first Prius in the county at that dealership. Hilo dealer tried to convince me that the Prius was nothing but trouble that I should buy a Camry for less money. Of course the other two I could have had the cash in my pocket and not been able to buy a car at those dealerships.

It all adds up to trouble if corporate Toyota does not set some standards for the dealers to follow.

One other anecdote on dealerships. I spent over $800 with the El Cajon Toyota service department trying to get the grinding noise out of the front brakes on my ex-wife's 1990 Camry. They never fixed the problem. A local Firestone store fixed it for $150. I did report it to the proper agency in Sacramento. I am sure you know how far that got. Toyota claimed their usual story, "The brakes are working as designed".

210delray

I'm not saying there are bad apples, but it's not limited to certain manufacturers, Saturn being the most likely exception, as well as the high-end/exotic car sales outlets.

Can you imagine being "mobbed" at a Ferrari dealership?

louiswei

Can you imagine being "mobbed" at a Ferrari dealership?

If I am really buying a Ferrari and mobbed at the dealership I'll have that store manager fired the very next day.

210delray

Then you might have "Vinnie" or "Guido" coming after you to break your legs or worse! :P

I can say this because I'm of Italian descent.

gagrice

I think you would probably be greeted by the owner of the store. If I am a Ferrari dealer I will keep an eagle eye on my inventory at all times.

Toyota is hardly in the same class with Ferrari. Toyota & Honda have had a good run. That is what breeds the arrogance more prevalent in their dealerships. When you have cars that sell themselves you do not need a sales person. Toyota has stumbled a bit in the last few years and will have to keep an eye on the store or they will fall victim as the Big 3 have. Toyota becoming number one is not written in stone. It is scratched out on a sandy beach.

geo9

So then....That makes toyota the RECALL KING of 07 right?
Not to mention there is the link to PROVE it eh?

Or are you going to throw MORE bafflegab or a salespersons
spin (aka excuse) on it????????

anythngbutgm

I myself would much rathersee Ford or Chrysler steal the top spot from GM. I myself have never owned a Toyota so I don't have any personal gain if they takeover. People I do know however are perfectly content with their cars. To them, they have no reason to buy domestics and they are pretty much off the radar for good as future domestic buyers. There's a lot of that mentallity...

To me GM doesn't deserve the top spot IMO. When Toyota steals it from them, it'll finally be a long overdue end to a chapter in Automotive history...

imidazol97

In a visit to Hyundai a few months ago, I browsed for a while wth the salesman. I plopped into and out of the couple of Sonatas they had in the showroom.

Then the GM came over to talk to me nicely and chat me up and about coming back when I am ready to get another car. I felt he was trying to see if there was any chance I would buy that day.

Yes, this was one person one visit.

PF_Flyer

Here we are again, back at domestics vs imports round 357...

Let's get off this kick of trying to prove which is better and stick to the topics please. This discussion is about the direction of Toyota, and while that certainly will involve mention of how things are going for them in the marketplace, we need to try and stick to the subject here.

We keep winding up with the same "Is not, is too" from the same group of people. You've all made your point to each other repeatedly in multiple discussions. In case you hadn't noticed, nobody is apparently going to change their minds and suddenly agree with your side of the arguement.

So can we PLEASE get back to discussion of the subject and get away from this endless traffic circle we seem to get stuck in at the slightest provocation?

ruking1

Indeed while it might not be apparent, Toyota's defacto strategy IS to be an American Company or has become an American company!!!! Which Toyota cars actually are built and shipped whole here from Japan? (or where ever) I know for sure the Toyota Landcruiser (model years I am familar with) is/was built in Japan. However that is something like 3-9k vehicles per year MAX.

If any of you doubt this, try to import a turbo diesel Toyota Landcruiser (one of my dream machines) from any world wide market!?

imidazol97

Who has the numbers on Toyota and how many sold in US are actually imported from Japan. I believe someone quoted a figure on one discussion; the result was that Toyota built many more in Japan out of all their vehicles, but the perception is that they build most of them here.

I picked up a brochure at the GM dealer about Toyota and employees and manufacturing. It's disappeared. I'll stop and see if they have another one.

ruking1

While not macro definitive, I know for a fact the Toyota Corolla, Tacoma is made, a couple of miles, up the street. Last I checked Fremont CA is in the USA. Part of GM's basis for new success are cars like the Poniac Vibe.

http://www.nummi.com/vehicles.php

poncho167

It is an ugly truck whether you like it or not.

kdhspyder

No denying now that Toyota has the 'lead' in 2007 .... thus far. We'll see what happens through the rest of the year.

Gloat if you wish...but be careful it could be a double-edged sword. If it makes your day and keeps you warm and fuzzy inside, enjoy the feeling now.