Honda has it spot on. Launch a new car with rather controversial styling… then “fix” it at the mid-model refresh. Of course, they usually use the refresh to fine-tune the suspension and some of the mechanical bits, too… one of the coolest ones was changing the rotation of one of the radiator fans on the Honda Fit platform to ensure a cooler intake charge, leading to a 5 hp increase.

Luxury car market is different. Porsche and high-end Mercedes is very different. You are talking about people who pay 20K over sticker, those are filthy rich people with money to burn.

Toyota buyers want value for their money, they want a workhorse that will last for many years and most of those ppl want a car that goes for 200k miles with nothing more than routine maintenance and oil changes.

Why on earth would you buy a new Camry after 3 years? It’s like buying a new washer and dryer every 3 years, sure, there are crazy people like that but they are a tiny minority.

Interesting report, although the lack of a “restyle” definition made understanding “partial restyling” a little harder. Nice slam to the domestics for changing vehicle names so frequently and poor launches.

In automotives, our market research guys always talk about brand loyalty as the first determining factor however. If you’re a Toyota customer you are extremely likely to buy another, over-and-above various “restyling” factors. Price was significant, but not more powerful factor than brand, quality and reliability.

I guess that is why the report is “Non-Price Determinants of Automotive Demand” except they did not discuss brand loyalty.

What if the major iteration becomes more successful because of increased resources?

So, basically a Jay-Leno-at-10-PM strategy. You lose revenue, but you lower your costs by more, at least in theory. The thing that makes this dangerous is what happens if the theory doesn’t pan out and the loss in revenue is greater than the savings in lower costs.

This will certainly help reliability numbers, though. If you are in the fifth year of making the same car, you’ve gotten all the kinks out of it. Not that Toyota really needs help in this department.

God we depended on restyles. I sold Porsche and audi for years and we would always get huge spikes in sales when a vehicle was restyled or a new engine or trim became available. Porsche even more so. I was selling 996 c4s for almost turbo money when that car came out. That was a fantastic car. I wanted one sooo bad but held off for the 997. Now That early carrera s seems so dated with the new DI engines and styling/interior updates. Same was true at the mercedes store I’m at now. We used to get 20k over on SL’s and big market adjustments on S and CL class cars when changes happened. Now people don’t care. Our last huge success was the 2007 S550. When the new SL came out in 2009 we started discounting them not long after launch. We have sold 2 SL65 Blacks, both only got MSRP.

Does anyone have the stats to support this bold claim?

I can see Lexus buyers doing that, but I am not so sure about Toyota. Let’s see some numbers, let’s see how many people are crazy enough to trade their Camry after 3 years.

Its got to be one of the ugliest damn cars on the road. My neighbor (this guy who lives next to me who is positively WEIRD) has a silver one (base model, black basic interior, parking brake on on a FLAT SURFACE). Place this next to the new one.. and he wouldn’t know the difference.

But god..
KILL IT WITH FIRE!

AWFUL!

As for regular refreshes..
Honda does it every 2.5yrs on the good stuff.
We all wait for something significant and it turns out to be MEH.

Am I seeing a trend here..
No more MMC’s?

i think the refresh Honda did on the 2002 to 2007 model accord sedan’s bangel butt did wonders in 2005 also the 2004’s refresh of the civic did wonders too especially the coupe

See my coment above.

The only mid-cycle refresh that I’ve seen make a difference were the ‘98 Supra price drop (not a refresh but they dropped the price like $10K on the sticker), 2006-7 GS 300/400 o 350-460 (huge bump in power), and 2006 Impreza (incorporating the corporate vagigrill).

However, is that damage significant?

What if the damage is $1B per year, and yet the savings would be $2B per years?

What if the major iteration becomes more successful because of increased resources?

Remember a key thing about both the VCU and the ML studies: in the long run the QUALITY of styling is not as important as the FREQUENCY of styling changes. I may not agree with that, you may not, but when we look at millions of Americans as a group they seem to prefer “new and improved!” over “new and better looking.”

http://www.people.vcu.edu/~okorenok/JBR090809.pdf

Here’s a great quote from the study: “We find that new product, as measured by restyling, represents the most consistent, dominant determinant of demand. On average a ten percent reduction in relative price would yield only one-tenth the market share impact of a restyling. Alternatively, one would have to double one’s relative advertising expenditures to match the impact of a restyling.”

So, yes, mid-cycle light restyles matter, a lot. Before y’all yell at me, read the study, it is generally available.

OR, we could do the internet thing and just shout assertions at each other (grin).

PS: Merrill Lynch in its annual Car Wars studies proves the same point by the way.

One of the reasons why Ford is on the upswing is that its new product introductions were increased.

It seems to me that Toyota lost its mojo the moment it became the world’s #1 automaker. Of course it was a long time in the making, but Toyota forgot what its strengths were in its ambition to be the biggest.

Ford had their Eddie Bauer line.

Expect the future to offer the Max Factor line or whatever.

Sort of a Cover Girl look where appearance is used to cover interior sins and to smooth over the creases and make subjective outer beauty of more importance than what lies underneath.

Then again what happens when a new vehicle doesn’t meet expectations. Is management literally going to ride out 5-6 years of subpar product? Wouldn’t this mean that Toyota would essentially be playing catchup?

Sure I can. The 2006 update for the 4Runner turned an ugly duckling into something that actually had nice lines again.

As we’ve seen with the 2010 Mazda 3 (not a mid-cycle refresh, BTW), any car company can make a mistake. Sometimes the “bold launch design”, while effective in the short-term, get’s stale fast. The mid-cycle refresh is a good way to add needed refinement. This sounds like a mistake on Toyota’s part.

As for the Mazda 3, it’s ugly now, it’s not going to get any prettier with time either. The sooner they can fix that toothless gap the better.

Gear heads would want better engines, acceleration, handling, etc etc. That is not typical of mid cycle refreshing. It does happen on occasion, but it isn’t the norm.

The refreshes would actually help the appliance buying public who wants the latest gadget in their car or a nicer look.

For those saying it could help with resale value not to do it, it could also hurt it. If Toyota gets the GM image of letting vehicles rot on the vine, what will that do for resale value?

Outside of speeding and red light cameras, I typically don’t agree with RF on anything but like him, the car salesmen I’ve talked to (admitedly very anecdotal evidence) all agree that mid-cycle refreshining is vital to maintain not only some sales volume but customer brand loyalty. Sure, many of their customers fall into the “autos and appliances” mentality we’ve seen develop over the last 15 or so years.

But…we’re a consumer group that hasn’t completely “lost it” for cars, and that’s evidenced by wanting *stylish* appliances. And that’s typically done best via the mid-cycle refresh.

Sure, much can be said for the total dumb-ass mid-cycle refresh. I know some here hate Mazda’s refresh of the 3, I love it and that was a factor in purchasing it. Plus, many of these mid-cycle refreshes correct deficiencies in the original design. Again, I’ll use the Mazda 3 sedan as an example. That love it or hate it front and along with a few other body tweaks significantly reduced road noise in the cabin.

Toyota’s going down a slippery slope with this decision. And yes, that Corolla does look nice.

Toyota seems to have the right idea here.

Can you name a single mid cycle refresh (plastic bits only) that looks better than the original?”

The rear on the refreshed 2005-2007 Accord with it’s LED tailamps is about a million times better than the Buick inspired droopy tail lamps of the original 2002-2004 design.