Toyota under fire

[qwikz28]

interesting article... my friend and i predicted this would happen a couple weeks ago while we were catching up over some starbucks

http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic...SS01/702130401

[Savage_Messiah]

i hate toyota.

[maroman88]

thank you for making a thread worth reading !

and i too hate toyota and all other imports! USA biotch

[Ian]

so people are finally starting to realize that Toyota is damaging our economy....its about time.

[Untamed]

I don't see Toyota hurting our economy. I see the big three being beaten at their own game - capitalism.

[BonzoHansen]

Originally Posted by qwikz28

interesting article... my friend and i predicted this would happen a couple weeks ago while we were catching up over some starbucks

http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic...SS01/702130401

Wow, holy old news. I read that in the Wall Street Journal like 2 or 3 weeks ago. Good job Detroit Free Press.

[JL8Jeff]

If people are choosing to buy Toyotas instead of GM, Ford or Chrysler, why would there be a consumer backlash? People who think Toyota is a better product will buy another Toyota, they don't care where it's made or who's parts are in it. People that buy a Ford complain because they aren't willing to put the money into the regular maintenance like Toyota and Honda owners do. In the end, it's the consumer who decides what they want and don't want. I think that Toyotas are built better but I don't care, I'm driving a GM vehicle because that's what I want to drive. It's not going to fall apart on me all of the sudden. I do the maintenance and it will last. Plus, most people don't keep a car long enough to worry about it falling apart. They trade in on a newer vehicle every 3-4 years. GM, Ford and Chrysler need to build vehicles that people want to buy, plain and simple.

[BonzoHansen]

Will NASCAR fans buy the Mexican made Fusion, the Canadian made Impala or the American made Camry?

[NJSPEEDER]

none of the above. nascar racing has been proven in market surveys to have little influence on auto buying decisions. it has a lot to do with the cars no having anythng to do with the street vehicles they are supposed to represent.
GM made the best point about this by running ads about their wins in SCCA, ALMS, Rolex Endurance Series, and other production based racing series. it is also the reason that ford and gm have both made financial moves to push their prducts more in production based racing that has traditional been the selling place for porsche and bmw cars.

[bubba428]

i think he was trying to make a reneck remark...and i'll just by a used chevy made in the usa...phuck canada...phuck mexico...and phuck japan

[WildBillyT]

Originally Posted by bubba428

i think he was trying to make a reneck remark...and i'll just by a used chevy made in the usa...phuck canada...phuck mexico...and phuck japan

And where, pray tell, was your Camaro built?

[BonzoHansen]

A little tidbit on this in today's paper, where I got my little snip about where cars are built from. I added some formatting for emphasis.

Toyota vs. USA?
Wall Street Journal February 14, 2007; Page A20
By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.

Will they boo? More than a few bonuses at Toyota USA must hang on that question as the foreign brand participates in its first-ever Daytona 500, dubbed (by fiat of Nascar's marketing department) the "Great American Race."

Not that there really could be such a thing as a "foreign" stock car. All the vehicles in Sunday's race will have been built from scratch in fabrication shops in the vicinity of Charlotte, N.C.

And "stock car" should perhaps be put in quotes too -- these are purpose-built racecars whose only resemblance to the street versions is the names they borrow.

While we're at it, let's avert our eyes from another irony: In tinkering with the rules to permit Toyota's entry, Nascar changed the definition of an eligible vehicle from "American-made" to "American-assembled." Oops. Chevy's Monte Carlo is built in Canada and Ford's new Fusion is assembled in Mexico.

Then again, it's probably time to retire the slogan that for 50 years has underwritten Detroit's participation in Nascar: "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday." Folks in the grandstands long ago realized that the car on the racetrack bears not the slightest relation to the showroom hardware. And Toyota certainly didn't sign up with Nascar in hopes of selling more Camrys -- they already fly off the shelves and, anyway, Toyota's own surveys show that Camry owners are indifferent to Nascar.

Toyota wants to sell trucks, specifically its new Tundra pickup. Joining Nascar is the company's way of asserting, after 50 years, its claim to be treated as an "American" company based on the factories it has built here and the thousands of jobs it has created. Toyota calculates, perhaps shrewdly, that staking such a claim is the necessary preliminary to competing for the largely male, largely rural, disproportionately Texan market for pickup buyers.

As for the us-vs.-the-invader rhetoric that has slightly clouded Toyota's welcome in the sport, think of it mainly as hooey aimed at serving the backroom needs of those who've been shouting it most conspicuously: legendary team owner Jack Roush, who fields five cars with the "Ford" emblem, and Ford's own Dan Davis, head of its racing operations, who publicly accuses Toyota of being a "predator."

The two have a natural interest in papering over the fact that Ford is in the worst shape of the Big Three, both in its racing and in its business. More to the point, Messrs. Roush and Davis are a greek chorus for a message that other team owners and sponsors have quietly been whispering in Nascar's ear since Toyota appeared on the horizon: We're counting on you to protect our interests!

Exact figures are hard to come by, but some 90% of the money for racing comes not from the auto makers but from the consumer marketers whose logos festoon the cars. And a big problem is that Toyota's arrival crowds seven more contenders into a field for each race that has room for only 43.

This is one pie that even Nascar's famed "competition managers" will have a hard time baking any bigger. Nascar constantly rejiggers the rules in the name of sharing the marketing wealth. Take the Daytona 500: While teams still go through the rigmarole of running qualifying laps, 35 of the 43 starting spots were already awarded in advance based on "past performance" -- i.e., based on Nascar's judgment that some teams and sponsors are too important to risk having them miss the big show.

In fact, the reason stock cars stopped being "stock cars" in the first place is that, since the 1960s, Nascar has increasingly been designing the cars itself to ensure advertisers a "level playing field." This marketing imperative will culminate later this year in a new, Nascar-designed "Car of Tomorrow" to provide safer, more competitive racing. Yes, the cars will still be called Fords, Chevys, Dodges and Toyotas, but for purposes that finally are purely promotional.

A question then becomes: How much longer will Detroit throw megadollars at Nascar merely to mythologize the names of its cars? Except for Toyota, all the manufacturers in Sunday's race have been losing gobs of money in North America. The day may come when the Big Three decide they no longer have anything to gain from the Nascar illusion and choose to take their money to cheaper forms of racing where cars are more identifiably related to cars in the showroom.

In the meantime, what's not illusion about Nascar is its near-monopoly on oval racing, a genuinely interesting variant of motor sports.

What's not illusion are the high speeds and risk of serious injury or death, which strangely help to rescue the sport from terminal phoniness.

What's also not illusion is that cars, beer and other products these days are increasingly sold by the images and reputations of Nascar's drivers, who are better known, more accurately judged and provoke stronger fan attachments than performers in any other sport or realm of show business.

Toyota certainly has this side of the game figured out. In recruiting veterans Dale Jarrett and Michael Waltrip as its lead drivers, it picked not only two of the circuit's most visible stars, but two of its most well-tested characters, whose personal style, personal reliability and long family connections to the sport have made them rightly popular with fans and sponsors.

The two may have seen their best days as drivers, but Messrs. Jarrett and Waltrip are impeccably old-school in their basic decency and sportsmanship, not to mention in their capacity to keep their tempers under control in one of the most frustrating activities known to man.

Whatever its impact on Nascar, Toyota has shown that it understands the real source of Nascar's appeal for its millions of fans.

[BonzoHansen]

Originally Posted by WildBillyT

And where, pray tell, was your Camaro built?

If you completely disassemble a car (say to change a clutch ), and then reassemble it, can you now say it was built somewhere else? If a tree falls....

[bubba428]

built in canada...rebuilt in america...

[bubba428]

i've replaced all but the motor...which will go in a week

[BigAls87Z28]

Toyota is trying way way way to hard to be All American. I didnt see the link, but the Americanization process is taking its toll as the cost of operating and paying American workers to make the cars are getting out of hand, this was from an internal Toyota memo. And Toyota doesnt even pay for healthcare like the Big 3 do. There are ads that ran across the mid-west. It was in response to Toyota's ads saying that they have 10 factories in the US. GM's ad was "We have 10 factories too...In Ohio." pointing out that while Toyota and the others might have a few plants here and there, the Big 3 still dominate and are a big part of the American work force. Toyota is starting to get greedy. They want to make more money per car, finding cheaper ways of making them. All this while they have doubled there recalls over the past few years.

[qwikz28]

Originally Posted by Untamed

I don't see Toyota hurting our economy. I see the big three being beaten at their own game - capitalism.

not when the big three are at a severe disadvantage. they have a weak yen, no healthcare to pay for, no pension for retired union workers, and cheap cheap labor. i think GM is holding up well considering the handicap, i cant say the same for the other two though. i wonder what GM could do with the resources that toyota has.

[qwikz28]

Originally Posted by BonzoHansen

Will NASCAR fans buy the Mexican made Fusion, the Canadian made Impala or the American made Camry?

i think assembly line machines operate the same regardless of geographical location

i don't care where my car is assembled. my saturn was assembled in tennessee even though the drivetrain is japanese. my camaro was assembled in canada even though the drivetrain is american. the fact of the matter is, where is your money going? i am not gonna be the one contributing to americans losing their jobs and hurting our economy while sending our hard earned money overseas.

[BonzoHansen]

Originally Posted by qwikz28

not when the big three are at a severe disadvantage. they have a weak yen, no healthcare to pay for, no pension for retired union workers, and cheap cheap labor. i think GM is holding up well considering the handicap, i cant say the same for the other two though. i wonder what GM could do with the resources that toyota has.

I agree. The playing field is uneven, and for some dirty political reason, the government does not care. Neither side, at least at a national level, seem to care.

The UAW is one of the only big unions not fighting against national HC plan. The other big unions all own their own HC MGMT companies, so their execs are making $$ on HC. Not just companies with dirty overpaid execs.

[WildBillyT]

Originally Posted by qwikz28

not when the big three are at a severe disadvantage. they have a weak yen, no healthcare to pay for, no pension for retired union workers, and cheap cheap labor. i think GM is holding up well considering the handicap, i cant say the same for the other two though. i wonder what GM could do with the resources that toyota has.

Not to mention all of the hoops you must jump through to get a product sold in most Asian countries. Their governments take hard stances against trade with foreign businesses. Over here it's nowhere near as hard.

[qwikz28]

Originally Posted by BonzoHansen

I agree. The playing field is uneven, and for some dirty political reason, the government does not care. Neither side, at least at a national level, seem to care.

The UAW is one of the only big unions not fighting against national HC plan. The other big unions all own their own HC MGMT companies, so their execs are making $$ on HC. Not just companies with dirty overpaid execs.

well, i learned in imy nternational relations class that the US's stance on foriegn policy is to do what's best for the world economy, as opposed to its own. so even if the US economy struggles because of it, they will still do whats best for the whole world. i think its bullcrap and if someone doesn't believe me i can dig into my old notes and find it. hopefully someone else can chime in so i dont have to

[BigAls87Z28]

Even in China, where Buick is #1, there are strict rules that do not allow any foriegn car company to sell cars unless they are tied in with a Chinese car maker.
Japan has played with the Yen so that Toyota and the like can rake in major profits from selling cars over seas. American cars are very few, very far between in Japan.

[Knipps]

Originally Posted by BigAls87Z28

Even in China, where Buick is #1, there are strict rules that do not allow any foriegn car company to sell cars unless they are tied in with a Chinese car maker.
Japan has played with the Yen so that Toyota and the like can rake in major profits from selling cars over seas. American cars are very few, very far between in Japan.

how up to date is that? last i heard #1 in china was ford, not backing it just asking...

[BigAls87Z28]

Ford isnt close. Buick and VW dominate right now, Ford is trying to get int here, but right now, you aint cool unless you roll'n in a Buick.

[LS1Hawk]

Originally Posted by BigAls87Z28

Ford isnt close. Buick and VW dominate right now, Ford is trying to get int here, but right now, you aint cool unless you roll'n in a Buick.

Buick the ride of choice in China.... That's news to me.