[aldo90731]

Toyota remains the most valuable auto brand. It’s one of only three automakers to make the top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands. The other two are Mercedes-Benz and BMW.

VW showed the most gains, coming from the depths of Dieselgate.

Toyota ranks No. 1, but VW makes biggest gain in car brand value

 

[valiant67]

No surprise. Toyota realizes the value of brand image and the goodwill it provides.

 

[voiceofstl]

For the past 30 years if you were going to keep your small car for 10 years or longer you can't beat a corolla

 

[Doug D]

For the past 30 years if you were going to keep your small car for 10 years or longer you can't beat a corolla

As long as you like Vanilla.

 

[valiant67]

As long as you like Vanilla.

And very many people do.

 

[gforce2002]

Vanilla, Vanella, Chocolate, Strawberry, Let’s call the whole thing.. just a matter of preference.

My nephew’s family had a Corolla that they had for about 12 years and at almost 300K kms, had virtually no issues. He never even had to do anything to the suspension, just new maintenance items like brake pads. Finally, the manual transmission simply wore out at around the 300K km mark.

They bought another Corolla.

 

[MPE426HEMI]

Not to mention they keep model lines going without changing names or dropping them every other model, so people have something they recognize.
They have a better rep than FCA ever will, that's for sure. Although, they don't have one product that interests me in the least.

 

[DC-93]

Toyota sucks.

 

[chuzz]

I have owned and operated several Toyotas over the years. Most trouble free vehicles I've ever owned. My son has a 2019 Corolla. It's a very nice car. Last Toyota I had went over 200,000 miles before I traded it on a Mopar. The only thing I had to it other than regular maintenance was replace a starter. 20 minute job.

 

[aldo90731]

As long as you like Vanilla.

Jim Press, head of Toyota USA for many years, used to add “Yes. And vanilla is the best-selling flavor!”

 

[aldo90731]

No surprise. Toyota realizes the value of brand image and the goodwill it provides.

Toyota is unique in its view that customers, dealers, vendors and employees are all equally worthy of respect and loyalty. This is the foundation of a holistic view of the business that I don’t see at any other automaker.

 

[KrisW]

"When consumers purchase a Toyota, they are not simply purchasing a car, truck or van. They are placing their trust in our company." – Akio Toyoda

That's not a uniquely Toyota outlook; it's just that Toyota is the highest-profile Japanese company. The way most Japanese companies view their "customer relationship management" is really simple: respect your customer.

Japanese corporations, however, are not hounded by shareholders to produce ever-higher profits every single quarter. This gives them the space to make very long-term investments that American corporations rarely get the opportunity for, and customer relationship is a very long game: Toyota invested twenty years into gaining the trust of the American buyer.

 

[aldo90731]

That’s true.

However, I haven’t seen the same level of commitment to customers, dealers and employees at Nissan or Mitsubishi.

 

[DC-93]

Toyota is also bankrolled by the Bank of Japan.

While Chrysler was trying to get loan guarantees' in 1979, including interest,
Toyota was getting interest free loans from the Bank of Japan to expand their beach head assault into the US market.

Unlike here, Japanese banks work WITH companies to increase market share abroad. Yeah, long term thinking!

 

[valiant67]

"When consumers purchase a Toyota, they are not simply purchasing a car, truck or van. They are placing their trust in our company." – Akio Toyoda

That's not a uniquely Toyota outlook; it's just that Toyota is the highest-profile Japanese company. The way most Japanese companies view their "customer relationship management" is really simple: respect your customer.

Japanese corporations, however, are not hounded by shareholders to produce ever-higher profits every single quarter. This gives them the space to make very long-term investments that American corporations rarely get the opportunity for, and customer relationship is a very long game: Toyota invested twenty years into gaining the trust of the American buyer.

The problem is corporations in America do a poor job of communicating long vs. short term goals.
Short term goals (like reducing component costs) are often at odds with long term goals (reducing warranty costs).
Even in profit-driven environments, good corporate leaders should stand up to policies that just reduce today's costs without long term benefit.

 

[JavelinAMX]

.

Mostly found in relation to Sports and sporting championships, but it fits here, too :

" If YOU want to be the best, you have to BEAT the best."

'Fraid it's 'Yota.

There are others up there close, but this one has stood the test of time. Others benefit by catching rebound shoppers.

( And I'd bet that some of those shoppers might have experienced Buyers' Remorse ) .

.

 

[aldo90731]

They have a better rep than FCA ever will, that's for sure. Although, they don't have one product that interests me in the least.

Yes, that is an issue. I finally pulled the trigger on a Toyota Tacoma, it was the only Toyota I saw myself driving. Perhaps I’d consider 4-Runner if it weren’t so butt ugly. But nothing else really speaks to me.

Two months ago today I took delivery of a Tacoma TRD Off Road Double Cab:

Pros

• Assembly quality beyond anything I have seen from FCA in years. Any of my recent FCA-built vehicles would have started squeaking and rattling by now. Every body panel is perfectly aligned, and looks, feels and sounds solid. The doors have this amazingly solid sound when you close them
• Refined and quiet interior - you get an extraordinary quiet and feeling of solidity driving it —as long as you keep things below 7/10ths
• Attractively styled, inside and out
• Extraordinary value - I paid $35,000 (before tax and license) for a 4-door pickup with automatic, leather, navigation, dual climate control, rear locker, Bilstein shocks, all-terrain tires, premium sound, power rear slider, etc. And Toyota includes 2 years of free service with every vehicle it sells. A similarly equipped Gladiator would have been $20,000 more. Tacoma’s proven resale promises to make this one of the least expensive vehicles I ever owned.
• Good dealership experience - My only local Jeep dealer gets horrid reviews; the only Toyota dealer gets great reviews. I still have to take the Tacoma in for service, but the purchase experience was pretty good.

Cons

• A driver seat designed for Quasimodo. I still have to find a comfortable driving position. The seat is too close to the floor, the steering wheel too far forward
• A tight cabin. Interior space is at a premium, rear seat space in particular
• A 6-speed automatic transmission calibrated by Mr Bean - it just hates to downshift, and when it finally does it goes so far down that it sends the engine screaming.
• An okay engine - honestly, I was expecting more from Toyota. The 3.5 V6 is direct injected but isn’t particularly torquey or smooth once you get it revving, nor very fuel efficient. The crummy automatic only makes things worse. It is just not a pleasurable truck to drive. A recent trip to mountains was filled with drama and anxiety every time I passed another vehicle. Eventually I gave up and just stayed behind the slow-moving traffic. The Pentastar V6/5-speed auto on any of my JKs drove much better

Would I do it again? I’ll have to wait and see how things go with the dealer. But if I were to do it all over again I’d get the manual transmission and save myself the grief of this automatic.

 

[tlc]

I guess I am lucky. I keep hearing about all the squeaks and rattles. I have a 2016 Dart with 44,000 miles on it. No squeaks or rattles. Been a very reliable car.

 

[KrisW]

"Beat Competitor X" is always the wrong kind of goal to set.

It's a bad goal because it's not something that's in your power to deliver: you can beat the competition simply by standing still if while they hit a major problem, or similarly, you can vastly improve your performance, yet "fail" to beat the competition simply due to customer inertia or anti-competitive behaviour by competitors.

Bad high-level goals promote bad low-level goals. "Beat Competitor X" becomes "Ship more of our product than theirs". That's a bad goal because there are easy, and destructive ways to achieve it. Like discounting the product right down to its cost of production: Well done, you've met the goal, and left your company without cash for future investment. (Hello, General Motors!)

Toyota follows a very simple, iterative system: every year, you have to be better than last year on a series of measures. A clear goal, and achieving it depends only on your own staff - no outside factors. This is the same approach that FCA has adopted (although within the framework of WCM it's framed in terms of reducing "waste": activities and materials that do not improve the company's products). It's a long slog, and you need to get everyone on board (difficult in a Western manufacturing culture of "us" on the floor and "them" in the offices) but it pays off in the end.

The one time Toyota departed from this approach was in the early 2000s, when the corporation set an arbitrary goal of 5% more sales, 5% increase in gross profit per sale, all within five years. This was the time we had the rusting truck subframes, unintended acceleration and other un-Toyota quality issues. Toyota had abandoned suppliers with whom it had built decades-long relationships, and went with new, cheaper companies; the problem was that the older suppliers worked collaboratively with Toyota, often bringing potential design issues to Toyota's attention, and working to redesign parts around those problems before beginning production. The newer suppliers just made what they were told to make.

 

[AmbassadorSST]

I guess I am lucky. I keep hearing about all the squeaks and rattles. I have a 2016 Dart with 44,000 miles on it. No squeaks or rattles. Been a very reliable car.

Same with mine, and my Dart has almost 60,000 miles...of course she also has her share of quirks as well. Mostly electrical gremlins...things that happen, then mysteriously go away.
Plus that shifter cable recall...which should never happen on a newish vehicle.

It would take decades of quality products and positive dealer service experiences to shed FCA's negative perception.
FCA doesn't seem currently interested in doing either, sadly.