Toyota does the aftermarket right
Like the famed Direct Connection which morphed into Mopar Performance, Toyota’s TRD - Toyota Racing Development in case you wondered - has established a strong reputation for itself, far out of proportion to its actual sales. Their current direction should be strongly studied by the Mopar people.
TRD sold a rather tasty $2.5 million dollars worth of performance equipment in July, according to Automotive News,, which recently published an article on that division’s future direction. The largest source of revenue was supercharges, but suspension parts, wheels, and exhausts were also substantial.
Three years ago, TRD merged its aftermarket accessories department with that of Toyota Motor Sales, separating it from the racing business as such. TRD engineers suddenly had access to CAD files and vehicles under development, where they had previously been forced to reverse engineer their components. This opened up a whole new world for them, one which Mopar buyers are already familiar with - that is, having performance parts available for new cars. The problem is, unlike Toyota, Chrysler often does not really have performance add-ons available at launch; and they tend not to make it quite as easy on buyers. For example, TRD now sells superchargers for the 2.4 liter Camry/Corolla/Scion engine, its 4-liter V6, and its big 5.7 liter V8s. These parts are covered by Toyota’s regular new-car warranty - and dealers have a tool that lets them reflash the automotive computer, so that all reprogramming is done quickly and easily, with no need to buy expensive computers to go along with the parts. Imagine that - street legal, warranty-covered aftermarket performance parts!
The profit margin for TRD units is, according to that article, typically 33%, making it attractive to dealers. My suspicion is that Mopar performance parts have a similar markup, if not a higher one.
Toyota copied quite a bit from American automakers over the years - the basic design of their early trucks (essentially Dodge trucks with Chevrolet engines), for one. Maybe it’s time we copied something from them, and got the Mopar people to make hi-po parts available to us, when cars and trucks debut - without voiding warranties or emissions rules. Yes, it would probably cost more, but Chrysler needs all the street cred it can get.
