Toyota December Sales Hit the Wall: Down by 36.7%

Robert Farago
by Robert Farago

In fact, sales for the Toyota brand itself (as distinct from Scion and Lexus) fell by 37.5 percent. Oh yeah? Well, Lexus’ December sales sank by a whopping 41.8 percent. There was only one– count it ONE vehicle– that experienced a sales increase. The Lexus LX, the gigantic badge-engineered Toyota Land Cruiser, increased sales from 132 to 508 monthly sales (something to do with gray market exports to the Gulf methinks). Everything else dropped like a proverbial stone thrown in a deep dark well, from the Corolla (-19.4 percent) to the Camry (-22.6 percent) to the Highlander (-47.1 percent) to the aforementioned Land Cruiser (-65 percent). The Scion xB redo is looking like a HUGE mistake, with sales off by 52.6 percent for the month, which is only slightly less bad than December sales of the Texas-built Tundra (-52.2 percent). One wonders what these numbers would look like without the Saved By Zero marketing campaign. Folks, in case you didn’t know it, it’s Hell out there.

Robert Farago
Robert Farago

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  • PeteMoran PeteMoran on Jan 05, 2009

    @ toxicroach I’m just going off my personal observations of the offers, but I’m not seeing Toyota pushing the metal nearly as hard as GM and nowhere near Chrysler. Both GM's and Chrysler's actions in Dec would seem to be more about generating free cash from the inventory backlog. I would even suspect that many of the deals resulted in per product losses normally, but they just needed that cash real bad.

  • Boston Boston on Jan 06, 2009

    Toyota has been upping the incentives lately, although they obviously have a ways to go before they reach GM and Chrysler. December is a always a tough month to get a read on because the demo and service loaner programs are abused so bad by everyone. Nevertheless, this isn't the first month of industry average or worse performance for Toyota and that is a suprise to me.

  • RickCanadian RickCanadian on Jan 06, 2009

    Martin Albright, Even if this reply comes a little late, let me say you're hitting the nail with your post. Very few people (and least the auto industry) realize the consequences of the quality improvement. The reason is, of course everybody would like to have a new car every year. But who can really afford it? Now that we're headed to tough times (REAL tough times, not just a bump in the road) people is more careful in their purchasing decisions. Do I really NEED a new car when I only need it for transportation and the old one, or a pre-owned one for that matter, would do it just fine? The answer is obviously no. Also, in tough times, people can't afford paying more for a brand name. The quality gap between GM and Toyota, although still much more serious than the rosy picture sold by GM, has narrowed in the last few years. Therefore, when people start caring for the buck, they also start considering buying something other than Toyota, even if it's the reviled GM (and I'm saying this as a Toyota owner). It's just like going to the dollar store, you know you're getting something cheap and probably not as good as a brand name offers, but as long as it does the job, you buy it. I believe that's the reason that Toyota sales dropped more than GM's, and maybe we will see more of that in the next few months, unless Toyota reacts to the new environment. That would be a remarkable thing indeed: GM and Ford (forget Chrysler) could become the equivalent of the Chinese cheap stuff that we buy at the store. Even with the burden of the UAW, incompetent management and bad products...

  • Joeaverage Joeaverage on Jan 06, 2009

    CarPerson: I recently upgraded my fixed interval wipers on my VW Cabrio with a $25 upgraded wiper relay (VW only part). There might be a Toyota equivalent out there. Look around on the Toyota forum websites and ask them. I think the difference between the plainest versions and most luxury versions was just the wiper relay. I agree with what you said - my needs are not that great but some clever upgrades like the wiper relays was what attracted me to the imports way back when I dumped my Mustang (which did not have interval wipers at all). Features I have liked was express-down windows (all four), cruise, adjustable interval wipers, and good interior lighting which stays on after the door is closed a a little while. I also like the upgraded lighting packages I saw on the Euro-spec cars like the rear-fog lights (bright tail lights), headlight leveling by dash switch, side turn signals on the front fenders between the door and front tire, and so on. Massive V-8 power is nice, and so is the ability to storm around a track at impressive velocities but it is the little clever things that makes my daily driver more enjoyable when I'm driving around town doing errands.

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