Comments on: Important Alert: New Information About Likely Effect of Recall on Used Toyota Values

By: Eric Miltsch

Eric Miltsch — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 18:10:11 +0000

Dale,

I also believe the Toyota brand is resilient enough…

This is a great time for the Toyota creatives to get busy and use the power of their global online brand to connect with their customers (online & offline) – providing consistent recall updates, vehicle news & value-added, customer retention-based activities could help during these hard times – but also set the tone after this storm blows over.

By: Dale Pollak

Dale Pollak — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:36:21 +0000

Robin,

I agree. I would have, however, jumped all over those Toyotas at the auction. I continue to believe that the brand of Toyota will withstand this crisis and in the longer term be better for it. I don’t know how you think about it, but I’m fairly troubled by how quick other manufacturers are to jump on Toyota’s problems. I don’t care how competitive the market may be, it’s just bad taste and form to participate in competition bashing.

Dale

By: redmond

redmond — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 04:01:29 +0000

Dale, yesterday at a Ford auction, we had about 10 ARS Corollas go through the auction, and nobody, not a soul, raised their hand at any price to purchase the Corollas. I know this is backlash, but it just goes to show that news travels much faster than it did in the Explorer situation with Ford. As a Ford dealership, we've been mute about Toyota's problems. We've been there, it's not fun, and the preception damage can take months or years to overcome. I noticed today that Toyota started Tweeting about it - a good first step. I'm sure operation headquarters is saying transparency, etc., but this is something that they don't have control of, and I'm sure its keeping dealers up at night.

Robin Edmond
Santa Margarita Ford
redmond@santamargaritaford.com