Toyota Halts Lexus GX 460 Sales, Stock Drops

by Bertel Schmitt

Published: April 14th, 2010

toyota halts lexus gx 460 sales stock drops

Toyota’s Lexus GX 460 has been taken behind the woodshed by consumer reports. The SUV re-emerged with two black eyes. CR issued a “Don’t Buy” rating and declared the GX 460 a “safety risk.” Said TTAC’s Edward Niedermeyer: “Expect GX460 sales to fall off a cliff until the model is fitted with an electronic straitjacket.” Fall off a cliff? Sales are zero as of this morning.

Toyota “suspended sales of the 2010 Lexus GX 460” reports Automotive News [sub]. Toyota will be “vigorously testing” the luxo-SUV until they will know what’s going on.

“At this time we have asked our dealers to temporarily suspend sales of the 2010 GX 460,” said Lexus Group Vice President Mark Templin. If you have a Lexus GX 460, and you are worried, then your friendly Lexus dealer will provide you with a loaner until the matter is resolved, said Toyota in a statement.

Citing the obvious, IHS Global Insight analyst Aaron Bragman said the matter “certainly does no favors for Toyota and adds doubts in people’s minds as to the safety and reliability of Toyota vehicles.”

For as long as one can remember, Consumer Reports had been under suspicion of being a Toyota fanzine. “Past endorsements from Consumer Reports have been credited as one reason for Toyota’s steady sales growth in the United States over the past 15 years,” says AN. That friendship seems to be over. Last time Consumer Reports had issued such a damning statement was in 2001, when CR told consumers to avoid the Mitsubishi Montero Limited. Mitsubishi never recovered.

The Nikkei [sub] reports from Tokyo that “shares in Toyota Motor Corp. continued lower Wednesday morning, after the automaker said Tuesday U.S. time it will suspend sales of the 2010 Lexus GX 460 SUV … Investors sold the stock on concern about a possible recall and the impact on earnings.”

#BertelSchmitt #Japan #LexusGX460 #Recall #Safety #SalesSuspension #Toyota

Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

More by Bertel Schmitt

Comments

Join the conversation

2 of 61 comments

Dave M. on Apr 14, 2010

NEWSFLASH: Initiating sudden and common emergency steering manuevers can cause your top-heavy, high-center-of-gravity non-sports car to possible topple. PERSONAL NOTE: After 160,000 miles, I still haven't flipped my Trooper.

Like Reply
Gsnfan on Apr 14, 2010

This isn't a big seller anyway. The status crowd that wants an SUV seems to go for the RX (and the RXh if they think it's cool to be "green"). The ones with the real money go for the LX. I saw a few GX470s, but most of the new GX460s I think I see are LXs.

Like Reply

Recent Comments

Jalop1991 In a manner similar to PHEV being the correct answer, I declare RPVs to be the correct answer here.We're doing it with certain aircraft; why not with cars on the ground, using hardware and tools like Telsa's "FSD" or GM's "SuperCruise" as the base?Take the local Uber driver out of the car, and put him in a professional centralized environment from where he drives me around. The system and the individual car can have awareness as well as gates, but he's responsible for the driving.Put the tech into my car, and let me buy it as needed. I need someone else to drive me home; hit the button and voila, I've hired a driver for the moment. I don't want to drive 11 hours to my vacation spot; hire the remote pilot for that. When I get there, I have my car and he's still at his normal location, piloting cars for other people.The system would allow for driver rest period, like what's required for truckers, so I might end up with multiple people driving me to the coast. I don't care. And they don't have to be physically with me, therefore they can be way cheaper.Charge taxi-type per-mile rates. For long drives, offer per-trip rates. Offer subscriptions, including miles/hours. Whatever.(And for grins, dress the remote pilots all as Johnnie.)Start this out with big rigs. Take the trucker away from the long haul driving, and let him be there for emergencies and the short haul parts of the trip.And in a manner similar to PHEVs being discredited, I fully expect to be razzed for this brilliant idea (not unlike how Alan Kay wasn't recognized until many many years later for his Dynabook vision).
B-BodyBuick84 Not afraid of AV's as I highly doubt they will ever be %100 viable for our roads. Stop-and-go downtown city or rush hour highway traffic? I can see that, but otherwise there's simply too many variables. Bad weather conditions, faded road lines or markings, reflective surfaces with glare, etc. There's also the issue of cultural norms. About a decade ago there was actually an online test called 'The Morality Machine' one could do online where you were in control of an AV and choose what action to take when a crash was inevitable. I think something like 2.5 million people across the world participated? For example, do you hit and most likely kill the elderly couple strolling across the crosswalk or crash the vehicle into a cement barrier and almost certainly cause the death of the vehicle occupants? What if it's a parent and child? In N. America 98% of people choose to hit the elderly couple and save themselves while in Asia, the exact opposite happened where 98% choose to hit the parent and child. Why? Cultural differences. Asia puts a lot of emphasis on respecting their elderly while N. America has a culture of 'save/ protect the children'. Are these AV's going to respect that culture? Is a VW Jetta or Buick Envision AV going to have different programming depending on whether it's sold in Canada or Taiwan? how's that going to effect legislation and legal battles when a crash inevitibly does happen? These are the true barriers to mass AV adoption, and in the 10 years since that test came out, there has been zero answers or progress on this matter. So no, I'm not afraid of AV's simply because with the exception of a few specific situations, most avenues are going to prove to be a dead-end for automakers.
Mike Bradley Autonomous cars were developed in Silicon Valley. For new products there, the standard business plan is to put a barely-functioning product on the market right away and wait for the early-adopter customers to find the flaws. That's exactly what's happened. Detroit's plan is pretty much the opposite, but Detroit isn't developing this product. That's why dealers, for instance, haven't been trained in the cars.
Dartman https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-fighter-jets-air-force-6a1100c96a73ca9b7f41cbd6a2753fdaAutonomous/Ai is here now. The question is implementation and acceptance.
FreedMike If Dodge were smart - and I don't think they are - they'd spend their money refreshing and reworking the Durango (which I think is entering model year 3,221), versus going down the same "stuff 'em full of motor and give 'em cool new paint options" path. That's the approach they used with the Charger and Challenger, and both those models are dead. The Durango is still a strong product in a strong market; why not keep it fresher?