Toyota sales off more than GM or Ford

[toy]

I saw this also on the evening news. Chrysler's sales were of 57%. They may not be around much longer if this keeps up.

I think you will see that Toyota's and all foreign manufactures sales will be down for a while. People feel like they need to help out and give the Big 3 another chance. There is a feeling like we are all in this together.

Chris

I sure hope Chrysler makes it through, I have a dakota truck, I believe it is a 2003 but I have had absolutely no problems with it and it rides real good for a 4x4, I also have a 99 jeep cherokee and other than having a seal replaced in the front it hasn't gave me a drop of trouble other than that, and I enjoy driving it [hate they changed the body style though]. I have owned other Chrysler products and haven't had any major problems with any of them. I really like the looks of the new challenger that they came out with I believe this year[real nostalgia there].

 

[toy]

The american people have been brainwashed for years regarding
the foreign makes being better, and back in the 60's and 70's this
was probably true, but today it is not..

The american makes are just as good or better in a lot of instances,
but it is hard to get people to change back when they have been
happy with the foreign brands, the domestic auto makers need to
do a better job of advertising their products, compare them to the
toyota, nissan, etc instead of ford against chev i/e..

Down here toyota shut their truck plant down and i don't ever
think it make the national news, but if it had been a gmc truck plant
it would have been splattered all over the front pages nationwide..

But the news media really doesn't report the news just their
opinions and bias'es....just MHO......

Bob..

As much fun as I had with the 50's, 60's and 70's model cars, I haven't got anything bad to say about the American made cars of that era either, even though they didn't have all the extras that people have grown accustomed to today. The only foreign made cars in our area back then was the VW beattle they didn't have extras much either, but they was a tough little car, but they had their problems.

 

[toy]

December '08 sales figures just released:

GM down 31%
Ford down 32%
Toyota down 37%

I thought Toyota was so superior to GM & Ford?

Glad that you posted about that article I read it also and heard it on the news. I have also heard that the Toyota quality that most have been talking about has been slipping also. Most of the foreign vehicles rust down pretty bad also and that is a quality issue also.

 

[toy]

IMO, it's just another lame attempt by the media to make something newsworthy. Just like when they interview celebs. for election opinions...or bring out some expert authority to tell us how wrong something is.......or how the gov't should pay for something else the taxpayers can't afford anymore!

Remember Chandra Levy? For weeks, that's all that was on the news, then poof it's gone.
The news doesn't even do a very good job reporting on the events of Iraq and Afghanistan anymore.

Yea a person has to pay attention what he hears and then draw his own conclusion. I was watching [lets just say a former important us citizen and another really economically degreed up fellow and they were playing the role of a good one and an evil one like they do on the law and order police episodes. Any way the one was saying that in effect that the free trade was the best thing since sliced bread and the good one said yes but the fault about it we never took into consideration about those that would be adversely affected by these free trade deals and all they had to do was to come up with a way to buffer those that lost their jobs because of the free trade deals until they could get retrained into another trade. Any way it went on and they were congratulating their selves on what a good job they had done coming up with this brilliant fix to help the unemployed. That was the news story that they put out for our consumption, but the real news story came after they concluded the meeting. A young man came out and started telling the people to not leave yet that there would be buses outside to take them to the foreign embassies for a luncheon. That last spelled out what the whole thing was about and who was sponsoring it. Since the tools that you buy now are labeled commercial, or heavy duty, or industrial grade and you buy one and find out all these descriptive labels on the foreign made tools really just mean junk. I know someone is going to tell of a good tool that they have bought that was foreign and that might be true but used to be if you wanted a good tool you could depend on if it had one of these labels you were getting a good tool.

 

[toy]

That's because so many less people are dying, less explosions, etc.

I really believe the news media has some kind of vested interest in making the Big 3 look as bad as they possibly can and making foreign auto makers look like flippin' geniuses.

I did not notice that the article about Toyota idling their factories ever made any kind of TV headline news. Yet when Detroit decided to idle factories before Christmas, it was all over the TV news.

It's been a few years back but I was reading a car magazine and it had the top ten vehicles for that year and non of them was a USA built vehicle and I made mention about it to a friend that I was with and he said that the reason it was like that was because the magazine had been bought out by a foreign country. I don't remember which magazine it was though.

 

[toy]

That's because there is still a mentality that the big three build American cars, while Toyota, et al, build foreign cars. In reality, they are all multi-nationals. We have three vehicles. One is a Japanese brand. One is domestic rebrand of a Japanese brand, and one is a straight American brand. Only the straight American brand was built outside the US. It was built in Mexico.

I know what you are talking about, parts for the vehicles made all over the world, I pay attention what content % is domestic and what % is foreign before I buy and also where it is assembled. Americans have fought and died for our independence and just to sit and watch it just be given away without any resistance. We don't deserve to pay honor to those that have died in service for our country we need to apologize to them.

 

[toy]

I suppose you could count the advertising dollars spent and that might affect their reporting of the news. Plus, they've probably got some mindsets about the big 3 that are different from how they view the foreign automakers.

I'm not so sure of their "news reporting." A TVA retaining pond filled with coal ash broke in East Tennessee and nothing much was reported for several days.

If the "surge" is working in Iraq, you can be sure they aren't going out on a limb to say so.

Talking about advertising I heard some on the news saying that the big3 shouldn't advertise and save the money since they were having financial troubles, what they want them to do is hump up and die. One thing that I could see that the big 3 needs to do is get some ceo's that are passionate about their products that would help.
I saw about the tva retaining pond breaking, at least I don't think I heard anyone was killed by it that was good. I remember one of those ponds breaking in West Virginia and it killed over 100 people, it's been a long time ago since that happened.
The thing about the surge in Iraq it has slowed down the violence there, but we are not fighting a typical enemy, with this enemy when it gets hot in one spot they will move to another spot. Their way of fighting is to attack some unsuspecting and usually unarmed person at the time they attack.

 

[toy]

That's exactly what I am trying to say. It was the attitude they took towards the customer that caused them to lose market share. All the while the imports were sitting back watching what not to do. They learned from our mistakes and look where we are now.

Chris

I too have seen some dealers that wasn't worth a dime and when you have to deal with that kind of situation that hurts the product line. I wonder if the dealers of new cars has any kind of mandated training programs for their repair technicians or if it is up to the individual dealer, to train it's employees.

 

[fltem06]

I've always have been a Ford truck person, but I bought my first Chevy in '91. Every 2 years, whether I wanted to or not, battery & alternator. The dealership about ruined the AC(put too much in the system),and the trans.(serviced it & didn't put enough in), then I found out that it was made in CANADUH!!! Had enough, bought my first (with sorrow in my heart) Toyota truck (made in Kentuck) in 2001, and haven't had a problem since. Regular servicing, 1 set of disc pads, & 1 set of tires.That's all it has cost me to run this American made Toyota. I believe Chev & Ford are "finally" making a better product and it's showing.We demanded better & they're finally listening.

 

[tlbuser]

I'm not so sure of their "news reporting." A TVA retaining pond filled with coal ash broke in East Tennessee and nothing much was reported for several days.

No massive evacuation effort, no celebs, no politicians involved therefore no foul, no news