All Entries in the "Auto News" Category

Tundra 2010 Sales Growth Ahead of Chevy, GMC, and Ram

Yesterday Toyota announced their 2010 total sales figures, which were quickly pulled into a 2010 Pickup Sales Totals article on PickupTrucks.com. The highlight? Toyota Tundra sales in 2010 grew 17.5% compared to 2009, which means that Toyota sold a total of 93,309 trucks.

While Ram and GM both sold more trucks (199,652 Rams and 499,929 GM’s), sales growth at Ram was 12.6% and about 16.5% at GM. Ford was the big winner with 528,349 trucks sold in 2010 – 27.7% more than 2009. Titan pulled up the rear with 23,416 sales in 2010, growth of 23%.

While some people might look at the numbers for Ford, Ram, and GM and marvel, you have to handicap these numbers because:

Ram 1500 Recall For Rear Axle Bearings, Tundra Too?

Chrysler-Fiat is recalling more than 50,000 Ram 1500 pickups because of a rear axle bearing problem that can eventually cause a rear axle failure. The symptoms of this problem are a growling, griding noise coming from the rear axle:

Chrysler is recalling certain model year 2011 Ram 1500 trucks manufactured from September 2009 through December 2010. Some vehicles may have experience a noise (growl, grind) coming from the rear axle bearing which could eventually seize.

If this recall is not completed, a failure of the bearing could cause the vehicle to stall increasing the risk of a crash.

The interesting thing – to me at least – is that these symptoms match a Toyota Tundra TSB (#T-SB-015-10):

3 Reasons Toyota Should Unveil A Prius Pickup

On January 10th, 2011, Toyota is going to unveil three new Prius models:

1. The plug-in Prius hybrid that’s been rumored for years
2. The Prius wagon that Toyota has hinted at for months (and that made an appearance at Toyota’s most recent Las Vegas dealer meeting)
3. An unknown concept

I think the unknown concept that is unveiled will probably be a Prius coupe that we were all expecting to see last year. However, it could be a Prius pickup truck. We talked about the possibility of a Prius pickup truck in late September, 2010, and at that time we referenced news that discussed a car-based pickup shared between Prius and Scion: Scion would get the low-cost version that attracted younger consumers with lots of customization options, while Prius would get the higher-cost version with a hybrid drivetrain and great gas mileage.

Is Toyota's old A-Bat concept a future Prius brand pickup truck?

While we’ll always question the logic of a car-based pickup truck, there’s no denying that the marketplace anticipates a need. GM is talking about bringing back the El Camino and the next Ram Dakota will be based on a car. If Toyota decided to invest in a new Prius model in early 2008, there’s a pretty good chance they looked at building a pickup. The popular opinion at the time was that gas prices had really hurt truck sales and that there was a strong need for a fuel-efficient truck. Add in all the news we’ve seen and it sort of makes sense…

Here’s why Toyota should unveil a new Prius-powered pickup next month:

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.

Amatoya: Futuristic Firefighting Vehicle

Most of us grew up with fire trucks that were big, red, and noisy, designed to carry as much water, supplies and men as possible to the scene of a blaze while clearing a path along crowded city streets or twisting rural roads. The future of firefighting equipment, however, might look quite different if Liam Ferguson has his way. The designer has put together an entirely new type of firefighting vehicle called the Amatoya that is more adaptable to a wider range of situations than traditional truck-based apparatus.

The inspiration for the Amatoya came from the “Black Saturday” wild fires that swept across Victoria, Australia in 2009.