Author Archive for Jason Lancaster

The Future of Free Maintenance Programs

Since March of 2010, Toyota dealers have offered ToyotaCare®, a 2 year 25k mile complimentary maintenance program, on all new vehicles. In October 2010, Toyota decided to make the 2 years 25k miles maintenance program permanent. While some people have been critical of the value of this “free” maintenance – it can work out to as little as 2 free oil changes and 2 free tire rotations – there’s definitely something nice about free maintenance…even if Toyota isn’t offering much of it.

In the future, you can expect this program to become much more common AND increase in length – here’s why:

1. Dealers love them. Dealers need every opportunity to ‘capture’ new vehicle buyers and turn them into regular service customers. Many studies show that dealers are much more likely to obtain a lifetime customer if they can get them to come in for 3 consecutive oil changes. Since Toyota’s program is offering new owners anywhere from 5 free oil changes (one every 5k miles) to 2 free oil changes (one every 10k miles), that’s a huge step towards grabbing a new service customer.

2. Consumers expect them. According to the dealership service pros I talk to, consumers have come to expect maintenance-free vehicles now more than ever. Since many consumers don’t do their own maintenance – and don’t understand what it is or why it’s really important – they view maintenance as a real burden. Making it free reduces the perceived burden accordingly.

3. They improve brand loyalty. The trend in vehicle service over the last 30 years has been really troubling for auto manufacturers:

• Consumer buys new car
• Consumer decides not to service new car at dealership to save both time and money
• Accordingly, consumer has no relationship with the dealership that sold them their car
• Because consumer isn’t visiting dealership every 60-90 days, they’re not seeing the manufacturer’s new products
• When the consumer gets ready to buy another new vehicle, they’re less likely to return to the same dealer and buy the same product

By offering free maintenance, manufacturers increase the chance that dealers can ‘capture’ a customer and grow a repeat new-car customer.

4. They’re relatively cheap. Toyota and other manufacturers are reducing the frequency of oil changes by going with fully synthetic oil that only needs changed every 10k miles. The longer interval makes these free maintenance programs less expensive from the manufacturer’s perspective…we can expect to see the length of free maintenance match the length of the factory bumper-to-bumper warranty soon.

5. They facilitate leasing. Consumers often choose to lease a new vehicle because they’re significantly cheaper than buying (at least in the short run). Businesses often choose leasing because they need to write-off a vehicle expense as transparently as possible. Both businesses and consumers who lease like the idea of no additional costs beyond their payment.’

6. Toyota isn’t the first to offer them. Free maintenance programs have been around for a while, but Toyota was the first “non luxury” manufacturer to make them standard. Luxury car companies have been enjoying the benefits of these programs for years…Toyota is just following what already works at Lexus.

Chrysler-Fiat has recently moved to match Toyota’s free maintenance program by offering a 3 year 36k mile on two top-end Dodge models. Assuming Dodge buyers and Dodge dealers like the program as much as Toyota dealers, you can expect to see maintenance programs on all Chrysler-Fiat vehicles at some point…with the rest of the industry following.

Top 10 Toyota Stories of 2010

Has there been a more important year in Toyota’s U.S. history than 2010? Toyota experienced a once-in-a-lifetime scandal, took an unprecedented action and stopped building or selling key models for 10 days, became the target of a $10 billion dollar lawsuit, and yet somehow managed to increase truck sales 15% in 2010 compared to 2009.

Has 2010 been a good year for Toyota? No. But it hasn’t been bad…at least not as bad as some people projected. Toyota’s culture seems to be undergoing a change, and consumers are slowly but surely warming back up to Toyota.

Here are the top 10 Toyota stories of the past year:

Ask TundraHQ: How Much Camper Weight Can My Truck Handle?

We regularly receive questions from readers via our contact form – here’s one that comes up quite a bit about in-bed truck campers and payload ratings.

I have a Toyota Tundra DoubleCab and I’m thinking about buying a 1,482lbs slide-in camper. My question is, What is safest weight I can haul in the bed of my Truck?

Here’s how to calculate your truck’s actual payload rating:

Falken Tire Toyota Tundra – Big Blue

This year’s SEMA show was crawling with interesting items. We got some great video and interviews, did some quick demonstrations of a variety of parts, and of course we found a lot of cool Tundras.

That's a Kawasaki KX250F and a Kawasaki KX450F in the back.

Click any of the photos in this article to see a larger image

However, this 2011 5.7 Tundra 4×4 from Falken Tire is the only Tundra we saw with a genuine solid front axle. Check it out:

Search terms people used to find this page:

• Off road evolution solid axle tundra

2011 Dodge Ram Diesel Coming?

Allpar.com, a long-time Chrysler enthusiast website, has reported that Ram dealers are seeing order codes for a 2011 5.0L diesel and a two-mode hybrid transmission in their vehicle ordering system. This is intriguing news considering all the vehicle updates and redesigns we’ve seen out of Chrysler since the Fiat takeover. While the hybrid transmission is probably a red herring – GreenCarReports does a good job of explaining why – the diesel Ram 1500 seems feasible.

Ram dealers are seeing order codes for a 5.0L diesel engine on the 2011 Ram 1500 - could that be proof that a Ram 1500 diesel is coming?

Despite a near-collapse in the North American truck market in 2008, a government bailout in 2009, and stringent new fuel economy rules in 2010, the diesel Ram 1500 has never officially been killed. Instead, Ram has been coy – they’ve never said that the diesel 1500 Ram was off the table, but they’ve never committed to anything either.

Allpar’s news – combined with numerous other pieces of evidence – could be proof that Ram will release a diesel 1500 Ram in 2011. But before we start lobbying Toyota to make a diesel Tundra in 2012, let’s walk through this whole thing.