http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/...a-trucks_N.htm

considering how this first year went
it will be years before the
huge investment by Toyota in the new design Tundra
shows a 'real' profit, if ever

at least half of the Tundra drivers I have chatted with
say that they would have personally preferred to have the
new 5.7 V8 and six speed transmission
in the older & lighter & smaller design Tundra body

 

While I feel bad for the workers it's fun to see the "mighty Tundra" not selling as well as they hoped.

 

Yeah, I had a feeling that would happen. The city of San Antonio gave Toyota all sorts of perks to build there and they built the factory in the poorest part of the city which turned into a "boom town" overnight. It was too much, too fast. The folks that work for the parts supply and assembly got screwed bad since they aren't "Toyota" people. There are no other major manufacturing operations in the area except for a small Alcoa plant SE of the city......

Dusty

 

Not to mention, the new Tundra is ugly as hell. It deserves the TuRD stickers on the bed!!!!

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122274297535189207.html

note the table of sales and graph at the end

sample quote

Gone are the neighborhood scenes of a happy family pulling up to their suburban house, hopping out and unloading supplies for a home-renovation project. Chrysler is also planning to insert its truck advertisements in or around "brawny" shows like "Ice Road Truckers."

Cornerstone to the advertising will be a "reality-based" TV competition in which four two-man teams -- representing firemen, construction workers, military personnel and cowboys -- compete in Ram driving contests. One race has the team zooming down a dirt track and through an obstacle featuring two pickups that swing over the track from a crane.

Still, just to cover itself, Chrysler is also offering features never before seen in its trucks: heated and ventilated seats, a heated steering wheel and leather stitching on the dashboard.

 

Here's a story to cheer every red-blooded American: http://jalopnik.com/5057599/toyota-s...honda-drops-24 . The good news is the lower Dollar and higher Yen are wiping out the little profit the ba$tards are making. Also, the third world is where Toyota sales a huge chunk of their stuff and now that the first world isn't pumping money there, sales are way down there as well. I don't care if they have plants in the US, I want to see Toyota bankrupt and broken. The quality myth is a lie.

 

I agree with you, mantisman51. I wanna see almost, if not all, Japanese brands wiped out before i wanna see our hometown heroes disappear. I saw on the Fox News channel today that Chrysler Corp. is losing a lot of sales on it's own shores. Why pick on them huh? It's not like they're the only ones who are suffering in this economic crisis. Pick on someone else and stop bashing domestic companies with a bad sales rep. Oh, and about the Tundra plant, trust me. It's going down. They've shut the whole thing down and are having the employees work elsewhere around town until the next model year, i think. I've been there and i've seen it. It looks like it's been abandoned forever. That's what Toyota gets for bad timing. Now they know what the American companies felt like.

 

Toyota quality a myth? Is Chrysler/Dodges reputation for building crap a myth also? My experience tells me no. Dodge will be gone long before Toyota. I dont wanna see guys lose their jobs either, but when you build crap decade after decade, you gotta figure the partys gonna end sooner or later.

Say, wasnt the Tundra also (along with the Titan) faster than the new Ram?

 

How's that legendary Toyota quality been working for Tundra owners? Go back and read the news again...

Toyota made their name in recent times with the Camry, Corolla, and Prius. Two of them being some of the most boring soulless cars on the road, built for those who see a car as an appliance that gets them from point a to point b preferably with little involvement on their part. The other, a market leader in it's segment for sure and there's no denying they've done an impressive job with it. Frankly I've driven one, it's still incredibly boring (and rather underpowered). If this is the future of the automotive industry I guess I should plan on buying used cars from now on... Now then, back to my point. The type of people I usually see driving Toyotas are people who don't drive too much or just drive a daily commute but other than that don't use their vehicles much and certainly don't use them hard. I would also be willing to bet if you could gather accurate statistics on how often Toyotas are brought in for routine maintenance by their owners you'd find it's much more often and regular than your average domestic. Built in quality? I won't say it's not a possible reason. Used easier and brought in for service more regularly? (two things that will make ANY vehicle run more reliably) I'm betting on that reason.

For all the bad quality rep people attribute to Dodge and Chrysler my family has owned many Dodge products and they've all been quite reliable for us. Could it be because (GASP!) we maintain our vehicles?

 

agree with you Altair. I work at a european car company and with one of the brands on one of the cars its actually considered "maintance" to have the front wheel bearings replaced at 60k. and its in the owners manual. and today i was talking with one of the service advisors and he was talking about every 10k maintance that is done, more and more junk is replaced so it doesn't fail. whereas in our Sebrings, every 3-5k (one has syntech in it), we take it in for an oil change. thats it. and their at 60k with zero problems (cept a wheel bearing that was replaced under warranty)