I was reflecting myself on the brand damage this would have caused. We've always had a thing in our family that a Toyota is a safe, solid purchase. I must have shared that with 10 people or more over the years. Then in the last couple of days since this story broke, I've shared this with 2 or 3 people as a reason to be cautious about buying Toyota.
It baffles me why anyone ever thought this was a good idea. Even if they back down, I'm left with an uncomfortable feeling that Toyota has lost their way.
Brand loyalty is hard to earn and apparently easy to fritter away.
I emailed them saying if you are so cheap to do a cash grab in this area what other areas are you sacrificing the quality of your cars to cut costs. I told them how I was disappointed and that something as simple as this would make me consider my second favorite car brand over them. Glad to see they received a lot of backlash.
For what it’s worth, almost every phone call to Toyota corporate in Dallas gets transcribed, categorized, and shared with many employees in the company so it’s worth doing. Emails do too but they show up second after the phone call transcriptions. App reviews on apps like Entune and Enform are read out-loud weekly; sometimes daily.
However, Toyota corporate in Dallas is second fiddle to the Toyota in Japan and has decision making power for only some things. They certainly listen to the customer.
Japan doesn't necessarily have MBA types who pump dying companies full of debt to feed off the carcasses, but there's certainly not any sort of good corporate governance either.
> Toshiba Corp. said Friday that a subsidiary booked fictitious sales of ¥43.5 billion in 26 transactions recorded only on paper. The scandal may again throw Toshiba into a crisis similar to its massive accounting fraud in 2015... In the troubled conglomerate’s 2015 accounting fraud, Toshiba padded profits by more than ¥200 billion.
I have a 2009 Tacoma. I have been getting hounded for years to get a bigger truck, mainly to tote my kids.
It’s like the perfect year car. I still have a backup camera (in the rear view mirror) and automatic windows but it’s otherwise a dumb car and simple 3 dial AC controls. I’ve even repainted it and replaced much of the trim/headlights etc.
It’s by far my favorite truck ever, minus the size, though it’s gotten me out of totally unreasonable situations and even was able to help pull my buddies 2500 diesel out of the woods. So he no longer makes fun of me for it.
With that said, yeah, if I can’t find a similar alternative (no computer dash, none of this type nonsense. ) I guess I’m looking at alternatives. Maybe I’ll get a 2019 tundra in a few years.
I believe I have subscription fatigue. I'm so very tired of all the little subscriptions, rather than "buying" things (such as it is). Part of that is the subscriptions that are easy to add but hard to remove, those really burned me out. Having the guy at my old Internet service say "I thought we were friends" when I called to cancel, really hit the wrong way.
I have two Toyotas and have been considering a third, if we give my wife's old car to our daughter when she starts driving. But this $8/mo for remote start really irked me. The idea of $8/mo for something I use a few times a year, that'd just stick in my craw.
I understand it in the case of cellular network sorts of features, but remote start doesn't seem like one of those.
They have ~15yr of being the official car of people who want to give off that upper middle class aura and moneyed commuters. Not having to seriously compete does crazy things to corporate decision making. This is likely only the tip of the bad idea iceberg.
Edit: You people need to compare MSRPs and check out what adorns the driveways of "nice" places before you tell me Toyota is the people's car.
Ford: Makes you go through a configurator, so assuming here this is the cheapest model: Fiesta - €22000
Volkswagen: Polo - €22000
Honda: Civic - €25000
Fiat: Call us or visit a dealer
BMW: i3/X1 - €44000
Kia being the cheapest is no surprise, but Toyota is joint for second place.
Of course, no new car is "the people's car", rather that's usually whichever car from the lower end of the market sold the most 5-10 years ago to be cheap now on the used market. Which ends up mostly being Ford focuses, Toyota corollas and various Nissan and Kia models.
And now you know why there's more corolla's on the used market - it doesn't make sense to buy a new Yaris vs an old corolla for more people, so we end up with not as many people buying Yarises,
I know in Japan a Toyota is considered a more upper-crust brand (as opposed to the budget Daihatsu) but Toyotas in North America are solidly the “working class beater” that you own for 20 years and drive until you have literal holes in the floor.
Different countries would have different symbols/signals, a Land Rover aka a Chelsea Tractor/Wagon is definitely an upper middle class symbol in the UK, but not necessarily everywhere else.
In other countries with either lower income or lower income to car price ratio due to import taxes and road taxes on vehicles I can definitely see a Toyota possibility being a middle class symbol.
The Honda Accord was one in the late 90’s and early 2000’s in quite a few places around the world so the Camry which is quite comparable to the Accord might have been just that too.
Also the Land Cruiser might fill the same niche as the Land Rover does in some places (especially in countries where Land Rover doesn’t have good market penetration or it’s priced way above what the middle class can afford), whilst not a premium SUV per say it too shabby and it ain’t cheap the 5 door version is around £60K in the UK…
And regardless of price of the car the Prius was very popular with the middle class and upper middle class in its early years when it served essentially as an easy virtue signaling for many. At least until plenty of other hybrids/plug-in hybrids came out and ofc Teslas…
Now the Prius is pretty much relegated to Uber and Co. and even that would shift soon enough to full on EV’s at least until governments around the word would start taxing EV charging to compensate for drop in income from fuel duties.
I don’t disagree but not everyone lives in the US/UK/Germany tho…
I would say that in say Romania or Poland circa 2007 owning a new Camry would definitely make you an upper middle class, owning a Volvo or a BMW Series 5 would you make you quite rich…
Yes, Camry used to an official car for government ministers in India till recent, replacing Ambassador cars, and now getting replaced by Prado or Pajero.
Yep I don’t think people understand that what might be considered a “housekeeper car” in the US can be a luxury around the world even in relatively developed places like Europe and parts of Asia…
What costs $30K in the US can easily cost double as many countries levy high taxes on imported vehicles and that while $30K in the US puts you near the bottom it’s upper middle class salary in many places around the world still.
The average gross wages across many EU members are still below what a new Camry costs…
Looking at hey.car a 2019 Camry Executive with 33K km on it goes for €30K in Germany… The Camry isn’t available in Greece but the Prius Plug-in is and it starts at €40K.
Considering that the average yearly gross income in Greece in 2020 was just under €17K even owning a new Yaris might make you middle class…
Hm, maybe you're from a country where this status claim makes more sense, but where I'm from the Camry, Corolla, Prius, etc. were never seen as anything but dull run-of-the-mill middle class cars. I'd have never considered a Toyota owner a "moneyed commuter" in my life. The status symbol cars here are mainly German brands or Teslas.
