[NB: As per TTAC policy, sales numbers not adjusted for "sales days."]

Thank You!

Living in an area where dealerships are open 7 days per week, I never, never, understood why “sales days” “adjustments” served any purpose other than putting lipstick on a pig.

Funny, quite recently I expressed surprise that the 300 is tanking so badly. However, I parked a few spots down from one the other day and when I gazed over and looked at it from the side it occurred to me…’Damn, that car is ugly.’ From the front and back, it’s ok, but from the side? Awful.

Anyone know whether there’s anything to the following: I’ve been told that Toyota is diverting Prius units to other markets, due to the dropping value of the dollar. Claim being that even with the steep demand, they can’t compensate by raising the price, and that they can get more in other markets.

I don’t know whether the rumour is true -but cars sure cost a lot more in Australia than the USA. Currently $A equals about US$0.95.

The list price of a new Prius here??… get this

$A 37,400 base model
$A 46,900 with all the fruit

Don’t ask me why

I suspect they will make prominent quality and feature upgrades in the next gen Camry to smooth buyers ruffled feathers. On the other hand I made the same prediction after the last model, and the model before.

That’s not it. They have a shortage of Priuses (possibly diverting some to non-dollar markets where they can sell them for more). They also are pretty close to selling out quickly of all their Toyota and Scion cars other than the Avalon (if you buy into the daily selling rate stuff, the Camry was basically flat both monthly and year to date according to that measure-also remember the Camry was all-new this time last year, with high sales then because of that, making comparisons look weak). All their Lexus models are between refreshes except the LX (Lexus sales are notoriously streaky, going sky high whenever they redesign a model and then coming crashing down to earth soon after). And their truck and SUV sales are in the toliet like everybody else.

That is, these numbers were not unexpected by Toyota Corporate. They had budgeted accordingly.

Here’s the overall numbers:

http://pressroom.toyota.com/Releases/View?id=TYT2008070177210

In any case, the CR downgrade was very specific. Three models (in particular engine/transmission groupings only on two of them, I believe-that is, there was a specific flaw in the transmission of the V6 Camry I believe that did not exist in the 4 cylinder version, so the V6 scored poorly and the 4 scored well-the flaw was fixed) scored below average, which was enough to make CR move them off the “automatically reliabile” list. The other twenty or thirty models were still above average.

That is, they are still miles ahead of the Americans, the Germans, the Koreans, and every other Japanese brand other than Honda and Subaru (the only other two brands that get the automatic pass on reliability for the first year, due to their history).

A union made Toyota (Matrix) that is…

Has anyone seen any body-on-frame vehicle “new” for sub $10k OTD that can tow at least 2000 pounds? I don’t care what it is, what I do know is I have a jet ski (and maybe/possibly) boat in my future, most likely around next summer.

I would think any small/medium size truck could be had for under 10k. Ford Ranger, Chevy Colorado or the Isuzu twins if they are still for sale, Dodge Dakota.
Although I wouldn’t actually recommend any of those. A four banger Tacoma or Frontier may be a better bet.

You do mean 12,000 pounds right?

Because you could buy a four-cylinder Ranger, or even a Jeep Patriot with tow package that can tow 2000 pounds. It wouldn’t be that fun to drive but an F-150 to tow a jetski sounds a little like overkill to me.

Have you considered a used four-banger Tacoma?

Nissan’s June sales fell 17.7% and are down 2.4% year to date. The bottom literally fell out of the truck and SUV market for Nissan; Titan full-size pickup sales fell 71.4%, Pathfinder sales were down 71.7%, Quest sales fell 62.3%, Frontier sales fell 58.1%, Armada sales fell 63.4%, XTerra sales fell 68.3%, and the all-new 2009 Murano sales were off 24%. Overall, Nissan light truck sales were down 37.9% in June.

I would like to see market share charts for each segment.

Also YTD volumes would be nice.

Good job

The Aveo, on the other hand, is terrible. However, suprisingly in Europe, the 1.4L engine is reported at combined 5.9 litres / 100 km. I just don’t get it.

It’s still very depressing that Daewoo/Chevy is the new team A. Does that mean that Saturn and Opel will be team B? Will Saturn absorb the better-built and designed Opel vehicles? The Ford Fiesta and Opel Corsa (neither of which the U.S. has) are brilliant small car designs, easily blowing away equivalent Japanese models.

Sigh.

Getting 50% is better than get zilch/ SFA sitting on the lot anyways.
And probably tons of them sitting there.
Or they need to team up with Shady Tree Brothel for free BJ with new trucks. Call Truck & Trick sales. Heels & Wheels both at 50% off.

This dealer must be getting hit very hard!

John

I tried to search it out but cant find this offer.
Does anyone know of a website that tracks these prices?

The “percentage” data doesn’t tell the whole story, as shown by the Malibu graph. Up 73% sounds great until you realize that it is just matching the 2006 sales of the terrible Malibu. Things don’t look quite so rosy.

Regardless, I’m thrilled to see this sort of data. It tells so much more of a story than the generic garbage reported by the media. If someone was really motivated, they could normalize the sales based on economic conditions (total sales in the industry down) and carryover versus redesigned models. That is where you could really tell which cars are on the upswing and which are on the downswing. If only I didn’t have to do real numerical analysis at work, I’d tackle it!

mikey Hey Frank! How about some Impala numbers eh?With all the doom and gloom,the last I heard was O.T right into the fall.Enlighten us all with some good news on the Impala situation,or not.

Are you sure you really want to hear this, mikey? Impala was down 53.5% from last June and is down 23% from last year. I don't know why they'll be building all those Impalas or what they plan to do with them. Maybe there are some massive fleet orders coming up.

(Before you ask, LaCrosse sales were down 30.5% in June and are down 8.4% year to date.)

The Aveo has absolutely no redeeming qualities as a car, but it is actually useful for Chevy dealers. What better way to sell Cobalts than by first showing buyers a smaller, underpowered, poorly assembled Aveo that has WORSE fuel economy for about the same money!!! The lukewarm, average-at-best Cobalt must suddenly seem like a Lexus in comparison! =) It’s the same principal as hanging out with people who are uglier and/or fatter than you, so you look great in comparison. lol

Chevy has been advertising the Cobalt more aggressively for the last few months. Wisely the focus has been on fuel economy and the “XFE” version’s EPA ratings. It seems that the ads were effective, given the sales increases. It’s also likely that some would-be Aveo buyers were diverted to the Cobalt after seeing the ads.

The Toyota Camry has a lot more competition than it did a year ago. The Accord and, amazingly, the Malibu are as good or better than the Camry in all significant ways and they’re two years fresher, to boot.

I’ll be interested to see how well the ‘09 Mazda6 performs when it hits the road. I’m also betting that Ford Fusion will see a healthy spike in sales just as soon as dealers begin to stock more well-equipped 4-cylinder SE/SEL models. The Fusion will also be trading it’s 2.3L for the 2.5L introduced in the new Mazda6. All reports so far say that it’s significantly quicker, much quieter and gets about 3mpg better highway fuel economy- sounds like a winner!

Opinion on crossovers – much like (for example) the Pontiac G8 – right car, wrong time. It would have been great to move people into crossovers over five years ago for the basic reason of getting people into vehicles that handle better and have better bumpers that match autos in an accident, but let’s face it, people are doing more homework for an auto purchase and when they see a Pathfinder that averages 17 mpg and a Murano that averages 19 mpg, that isn’t enough to swing an opinion. That’s when (if their family or needs will fit) the Altima or G35 gets purchased. They could get mid-20’s in mixed driving.

I can only imagine how much worse this economic slowdown is going to get as I (for example) have been used to the past decade and a half of go-go-go type of money, purchasing power, credit, housing, and so on. The generation younger than me knows of nothing else but that. The auto and housing industries have thrived on that. This is going to be awful for quite some time…I would like to think that any other President would actually do something about this whole mess. I guess that’s asking too much. Of course Carter actually told the truth and we know how his term ended.

In other words, without the huge SUV and truck margins, the automakers thought they could still wring nice margins from something they foisted called a crossover.

The biggest reason the crossovers aren’t selling isn’t their bloated thirstiness, it’s their bloated prices.

Let’s see, $43k for an Enclave, or $26k for a tricked out Accord (after the 4 or 5k discounts Honda, the we-don’t-have-to-incent carmaker is throwing out).

Frank,
Gotta’ feeling that you are going to need to alter the Cry-slur graph next month, they are headed out the floor on that one.

I already had to do it this month. Next month the axis on those charts will be “zeroed” out.

Frank, do you have a percentage on the Ford drop do to the Jag/Landie loses?
Was it noticeable? Until this month they had performed well vs. the average (OK, less poorly).

In May, Jaguar and Land Rover sold 4760 vehicles combined. Ford’s total sales difference between May and June was 43,800 units, so roughly 11% of the sales drop can be attributed to their exit.