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Acura RDX
Cadillac XTS
Chevrolet Spark
Hyundai Santa Fe Sport
Kia Forte
Lexus GS 450h
Mazda6
Nissan Pathfinder
Ram 1500 Laramie Longhorn
Toyota Avalon
There was a lot of attention around the Avalon at NYC so I'm not surprised. The Lexus is nice but I found it to be too mish mash of shapes and styles with a ton of BMW influence. It too had it's share of attention but not as much as the Avalon...
I bet the new S class will one-up them.
I still love the textured metal available in the GS, but virtually all wood is kind of boring.
I was watching one of those factory shows on NatGeo, and I think it was Rolls that matched the maple so that it was symmetrical from the center. The pains they go through to make it look perfect are amazing.
Of course the price has to be justified in some way.
Stops in the middle of the road before it all, honks to remind videographer to roll tape for the inevitable lawsuit, doesn't signal, no brakes, ever, then goes back and forth several times as if to prove a point. Driver never even turns the steering wheel. Probably about 8-9 errors made by the driver by my count.
And people still blame the vehicle. :sick:
In other Toyota news...a friend of mine works for local city government, they have a fleet of Prius for errands. He usually drives an 07 model with about 50K miles on it. The entire display just died.
No display should be way over in the mother-in-law's view anyway.
From a marketing perspective, the real story is people are still associating Toyota with UA. It can be hard to shake perception - it took Audi how many years?
They're back from the dead now, probably starting the resurrection with the 1997 Audi A4.
With 3 million of those on the road I'm sure plenty of 'em will break, though. Law of Large Numbers.
The problem could be the expectation created for a car to be perfect. No such thing.
Have you ever been a passenger in a car, where the owner says their car is fine, yet you notice 3-4 things wrong with it? Happens to me all the time. I get out and say "BTW you have a rattle in the cargo area and the left rear wheel bearing is noisy and your alignment is off".
http://youtu.be/8DRQEusvNis
Mileage did drop from 44mpg to "just" 42mpg.
With a car that age, how it was taken care of is probably the biggest single factor. My sister-in-law trashes cars, they don't last 60k. I wouldn't buy a used care from her no matter the miles.
Standard warranty is 3/36 so more than double the length. I think a price break is the most he can hope for.
Else why would they sell extended warranties? For peanuts, too. I shopped for the Sienna and they were under $800 for a 7/100 B2B warranty. I actually did not get it. Most of the complaints were for run-flat tires and my model doesn't have them.
Here's the funny thing - go price a similar warranty on a Hyundai. They cost a fortune, even with the factory powertrain warranty.
It's all about market pricing. The public sees Toyotas as bullet proof, hence the warranty is uber cheap.
It's a city owned car - not my friend's personal car (he has a Prius C which he loves and hates), so they will probably pay 2x retail to fix it.
I paid ~$2500 for 4 years extra warranty when I bought my E55. I came out ahead in the end.
Wife has one on the Forester but hasn't used it. We usually sell at 99,000 miles with warranty left, buyers love that. I paid with Chase Subaru rewards so $0 out of pocket.
City fleet and it's not retired yet? I bet that ends up at auction dirt cheap.
My mother bought an extended warranty on her Camry, I told her she probably will never use it, but she still had bad memories of a troublesome Taurus I guess. It didn't cost much.
One of the guys on the crew swapped out the radio for an AM/FM one from a junk yard, just to make it tolerable.
I'm not sure how often they'd trade them in, but they always seemed only a couple of years old or newer.
Under a grand for 7 years of coverage that even includes roadside assistance the whole time? AAA alone was costing us $70something per year.
But...make them affordable and you end up with happy customers that drive fixed up cars, that never become beaters with half the stuff broken.
How often do you see, say, an older Land Rover with a faulty air suspension, kneeling to one side? Makes you afraid to buy a used one, doesn't it? If Land Rover had a longer warranty you wouldn't see those, and that could help residual values, and keep customers happy and loyal.
Back to what you said, it is a way to "cheat" and improve the quality perception, since you pay for repairs up front. Manufacturers should subsidize them IMHO.
I think that may vary by region. Personally, I'd never touch a 3rd party warranty. I think you're just looking for trouble with one of those.
3rd parties really sell insurance policies, not warranties.
Good point. And as such, there is financial risk (BK, etc.) and the firm has no leverage with either the dealer or the manufacturer.
http://www.autoblog.com/2013/04/24/toyota-me-we-concept-is-a-multifunction-tuppe- rware-car-w-video/
The windshield can drop, speedster style.
Not that it would ever make production. And cars that have come close (Smart ForTwo and Saturn Ion) with interchangeable panels all have bombed.
A lot is riding on the new Corolla.
Toyota Tempers Its Outlook in the U.S. Market (Wall St. Journal)
Although, the bloom is off the hybrid rose too, so that opportunity may be gone.
Scion Tumbles in J.D. Power and Associates 2013 Initial Quality Study
As for Yaris, is it true the 2015 model well be a rebadged Mazda2? Doesn't bode well.
I'm in a rented Avalon Limited hybrid, this weekend, a nice enough car, but $40K for this? Really?! It's not that surprising that Toyotas market share is currently slipping. Can a revised Corolla reverse that by itself? It's such a shame they will still continue to give the base trim a 4-speed automatic, in the year 2014 no less. Why even bother, if all the other trims will have a CVT? Isn't the whole point of using a CVT its low low cost?
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
The article I read feels this would be great for the Yaris - the Mazda 2 has a bit of a sporting character (compared to the Yaris) and that a Mazda based Yaris will be a better offering than what Toyota could muster.
In reality though, this is more about economics - Mazda needs money and Toyota needs a North America facility to build a subcompact.
Friend of mine really likes the look of the new Avalon (he's weird, says it reminds him of a Peugeot), and test drove one. He claims the ICE is low end and no better than in his Prius C that he hates, so it was a deal breaker.
Scion...the recent 10th anniversary model commercial sums it up - cars for people who don't like cars, or at best, want to pretend they like cars but can't commit to it.
Truth is, this is the first of Toyota's hybrids I don't hate, because it is so well soundproofed that the motorboating engine is a very distant presence inside even when you have the pedal jammed to the floor.
I found it to have adequate power, no more, for high-speed passing with this powertrain. I am sure the V-6 would feel much faster, but if I were ever old enough to buy one of these I would probably pick the hybrid because I am very fuel economy-oriented. I was able quite easily to achieve 41 mpg over the 500+ miles I drove the car, some highway some local. Upon initial acceleration you can only go up to 27 MPH before the gas engine kicks in, even when it is in EV mode. I thought that was OK, but it would be a lot better if it could do at least 35 in that mode. Even then, you only go about a mile or so in full-electric before the battery runs low and the gas engine kicks on.
And yes it did have NAV, although I dislike NAV and had it switched off the entire time.
As for the 2015 Yaris, Mazda has hardly managed to move ANY Mazda2s, so if that is what is in store for the Yaris, maybe it is time to discontinue the Toyota subcompact from the line? Or else, make it really competitive with all the other models coming on-line in that class now.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
July Car Sales Will Be Impressive
Toyota's new U.S. goal is 2.25 million
At Toyota's recent national dealer meeting in Atlanta, Bob Carter, senior vice president of automotive operations, told dealers he expects Toyota and Scion divisions to sell more than 2 million units this year. Including Lexus, the tally should exceed 2.25 million.
...."There's a new Corolla coming, and a commitment to keeping Camry No. 1," the dealer said. "They want to sell more than 400,000 Camrys this year. They're going to do whatever it takes."
http://www.autonews.com/article/20130819/RETAIL01/308199952/toyotas-new-u-s-goal- - - -is-2-25-million?cciid=email-autonews-weekly&r=7000G0458689C5Q#axzz2cZgVex1g
They boosted Camry fleet sales close to 20% of total Camry sales this year - that's a lot of rental Camrys just to keep a sales goal alive. I suppose this means the financing deals will just get even better over the next 12 months until the redesigned 2015 come out.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
With pressure from the new Accord and Fusion, I'll be curious what Toyota does to keep their lead. It just seems so un-Toyota like to throw a ton of incentives at it or turn it into another Rentibu or Impala and dump them to fleets...
Honda/Acura, Volvo, Subaru have all been getting excellent scores on the latest tests, Toyota needs to step up as well. Must have been pretty embarrassing to ask for a delay in testing the new RAV4 only to find it with a "marginal" rating...
They should give the Lexus DI or Li-ion batteries, something unique, but they'd probably have to re-test for emissions and fuel economy.
Mazda2 is a good little car in search of a better engine. Let's see what they do with it. Accent/Rio brought DI to this class already.
They still depend on the RX too much, though. The GLA may steal a few of those sales away.
Just copy Subaru. Forester aced it. In fact it has aced every single crash test since its inception. It never once fell off the Top Safety Pick/Plus list.
Thought I would post this opinion from Detroit news (usually a "big 3" trumpeter).
"Toyota is now a better company, but Washington must consider evidence before turning to scare tactics"
"Washington should heed the lesson: Study the evidence before putting jobs and reputations at stake."
IMHO, good advice for many, although we know some people were praying that it was Toyota's electronics. Be happy all, stop the hate!
I've been saying that all along. Else why would there never be any SUA cases with a clutch/manual? Why were complaint rates for Ford double that of Toyota before the publicity?
How can a government that owns big chunks of GM and Chrysler not have a conflict of interest, also?
It's OK, though. Brake-throttle overrides are probably a good idea given how well trained drivers are in this country.
"With the exception of the sporty, low-volume FR-S and the slow-selling iQ, "we are basically selling the same vehicles that we were selling four years ago, and we are going to be selling basically the same vehicles for the next couple of years," Toyota's Paul Holdrige told Edmunds.
Holdrige, who is vice president of sales for the Toyota Division, Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc., said the recession and damage caused by the 2011 tsunami in Japan were two of several factors that prompted Toyota to delay new products for the Scion brand."
Scion Stuck In Holding Pattern
The jury instead pinned full liability on the driver of another vehicle that had crashed into Uno's car before the Camry sped out of control
Read more: http://www.autonews.com/article/20131010/OEM11/131019981/toyota-not-at-fault-in-- fatal-crash-of-2006-camry-calif.-jury-finds#ixzz2hQO9iSS4
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