LexFather

http://www.autonews.com/article/2008...00367/1197/TOC

Can Toyota reheat the frozen Tundra?

Pickup's output restarts as F-150, Ram launch

Mark Rechtin and Patricia Scott
Automotive News
November 10, 2008 - 12:01 am ET

LOS ANGELES — Toyota will restart Tundra production today, even though dealers aren't exactly clamoring to stock up on the full-sized pickup.

With sales slumping, Toyota on Aug. 8 stopped building Tundras at San Antonio for three months. Now the Tundra is back — just as Ford rolls out the redesigned F-150 pickup and Dodge launches the redesigned Ram pickup.

Toyota is offering 0 percent financing on most of its lineup, including the Tundra. But Toyota's "Saved by Zero" campaign has been in place since Oct. 2, and Toyota has fared little better than the rest of the industry.

When production stopped, the goal was to halve the number of trucks in inventory, said Bob Carter, Toyota Division general manager.

Not Toyotalike'

At the end of July, Toyota had about 60,000 Tundras in inventory, of which 45,801 units were in dealer stock. At the end of October, dealer stock had fallen to 29,784, according to Toyota.

But Tundra sales have fallen sharply. Initially, the company had hoped to sell about 20,000 a month. When the economy began to slow late last year, the forecast was revised to about 15,000.

In recent months Toyota has fallen well short of hitting its goal. Combined September and October sales were 14,121 units, off 62.3 percent from last year.

On top of 0 percent financing, Southeast Toyota Distributors LLC is offering $5,000 to $9,000 in rebates on the Tundra, said Kate Frost, sales manager at Toyota of Orlando in Florida.

"This is not Toyotalike; it's huge," Frost said. "Customers are getting a $40,000 truck for $30,000 with one incentive or the other."

Jeff Daniels, general manager of Toyota of Muncie in Indiana, said he sells about a dozen Tundras a month and still has 28 in stock, an amount that still is "a little uncomfortable." He doesn't see any pent-up demand.

"If I don't see another Tundra until January, I'll be happy," he said.

Competitors in 'panic mode'

Despite gasoline sinking below $2 a gallon in Sioux City, Iowa, Toyota dealer Rick Collins expects just to hang on until 2009.

Collins said neighboring Ford and Dodge dealers were in "panic mode" closing out their 2008-model trucks, but that didn't affect his business as much as the overall economy did. Typically, Sioux City sells 15 Tundras a month. In October, the store sold nine.

"Customer traffic is off," Collins said. "The election, bailout and negative news has slowed us down. But the 0 percent financing campaign has done two things: It told people that Toyota was conducting business as usual, and that there was money to lend."

Toyota dealers remain hopeful.

"I have no doubt that there is a pent-up demand," said John Matthews, managing partner of Pat Lobb Toyota of McKinney, Texas. "People are sitting on their hands out of fear, but it doesn't mean they don't want or need to buy a vehicle."

pagemaster

Hey 1Sicklex...great find.

Yes the Tundra is frozen. Toyota made a major mistake with over capacity with the Tundra. I believe this all falls in the hands of former Toyota guy Press who now has jumped ship.

Toyota was so concerned with proving they could build such a huge truck they didn't stop and think if they should build so many. Now Toyota is losing a lot of money because of this mistake.

Toyota will have to adjust production again in a few months because the Tundra strength day after day.

I am more concerned with what will happen to the dead Sequoia right now.

But yes the Tundra is frozen...its frozen solid.

nabbun

one of the mistakes they made with the tundra was that toyota is new to this full sized truck business and they went in thinking they could sell it like their cars.

people walk in and see a car they like and even if it doesn't have every option they like, they'd buy it and drive out.

More truck buyers like to go in and custom order their babies and that's what left so many trucks just sittin there in dealership lots.

spwolf

well people did buy a lot of Tundras until the economy went down... and I dont think anyone thought 2-5 years ago that F150 sales will be down by 50% in 2008 compared to record years.

PhilipMSPT

iTrader: (5)

Supply and demand.

There is a demand for the Tundra, albeit less.

Now that supply is dwindling, Toyota needs to start production again.

I'm pretty sure Toyota is well aware of the fact that their target numbers will be much different for '09...

mmarshall

There were two big problems with the present-generation Tundra....both laid squarely on the backs of Toyota marketers and designers. One was that Toyota waited MUCH too late to introduce this truck in the first place. It should have been introduced YEARS before it was.....I've said that over and over again, both on and off CL. They simply didn't understand the demands of the American truck market....or make many real attempt to understand it. Since the mid 1990s, they thought they could get by with mid-size trucks with V6s and small V8s under their hoods disguised as "full-size" trucks. A TRUE full-size Tundra did not debut until a couple of years ago....way, way overdue. This attempt to market mid-size trucks as full-size for some 12 years simply did not work (as I predicted it would not).........dyed-in-the-wool F-150 and Silverado buyers were not fooled.

Then, when Toyota marketers (finally) truly understood the American truck market and introduced the truck they SHOULD have done in the mid-1990s, and got the size right, it was a product with sheet metal, hardware, and trim so flimsy and poorly done that it was an embarassment to the Toyota name. Many Tundras, for example, came into the body shop with bent and broken tailgates because they couldn't take the simple stress of holding cargo in the beds. Nissan, of course, with the Titan, got the size right the first time, and did not have the general flimsiness that the second-generation Tundra did, but the Titan, like other Nissan/Infiniti vehicles from the Canton, MS plant, had other, severe, reliability problems.

So, in a nutshell, I have little sympathy for the Toyota Tundra problems. The company's own marketers/designers, and their own stubbornness, got them into this truck mess.

speedflex

Toyota should just leave it alone. They really don't need this market as badly as the domestics do and quite honestly, with the brand new F-series and Ram, Detroit probably has the better products anyway.

LexFather

Seems this is one market America (GM/Ford/Dodge) has on lock.

mmarshall

If Toyota had introduced a properly-sized and properly-built Tundra to start with, and Nissan had done a more reliable Titan, the domestic-truck market wouldn't necessarily still be on lock.

bagwell

with today's economy, it will hard to get the Tundra "going" again.

I WAS going to recommend dropping the Highlander's hybrid drive into it for increased MPG, but with oil/gas prices down I don't think it would help significantly.