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Filed under: Economy , Scion , Toyota Click above for a high-res gallery of the 2008 Scion xB. My older brother Brian drives a Scion xD. He's 39 years old, and probably considered anything but cool by 18-24 year-old standards. He bought his little xD because he was tired of filling up his AWD 2001 Chevy Astro conversion van, and he's gone from getting 12 mpg to about 30. While that's a big-time win for Scion sales, the brand's marketing arm has to cringe. Scion was built to be Toyota's youth-oriented brand, with cars that would finally bring younger buyers into the Toyota showroom. The early days of Scion were a boon, with 80% of Scion buyers having never shopped Toyota before. Young people were clamoring for the xB and tC, and 100-200k online shoppers flocked to the Scion site each month. Only a year after the redesign of the xB and xD, the Scion site is seeing less than half the traffic. Overall, year over year sales fell for 17 strait months until March, when gas...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Trends , Japan , Marketing/Advertising , Lifestyle Could the country that gave us the NSX, Godzilla -- and the other Godzilla -- and The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift be on the verge of giving up cars for good? With car buying down by close to 33-percent since 1990, Japan is claimed to be in the grips of kuruma banare , which, for Japanese carmakers, is the polar opposite of hakuna matata . It's being labeled the "demotorization" process, and it involves large numbers of people in Japan's urban centers not buying cars. Surveys have revealed a variety of reasons, from the cost of purchase and ownership, to vehicles simply not being status symbols anymore, to cars being passé -- as in "so 20th century." The greatest worry is that young folks are simply not into cars, preferring cell phones and gadgets to Cubes and keis. Losing their audience before the love affair has even begun is no doubt causing JDM manufacturers to lose...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Marketing/Advertising , Chrysler Car sales in the U.S. flat-out suck right now, and both domestic and Japanese automakers are feeling the pinch. Chrysler posted a 13.2% decline in its Daily Sales Rate last month while offering 0% financing, so the Auburn Hills-based automaker has little choice but to continue offering free loans in an effort to stop the bleeding. Current deals include five years at 0% for 2008 models and six years for leftover 2007 models. Chrysler is also dealing with folks with less than perfect credit, which is a risky move with credit restrictions so tight right now. Beyond money for nothing, Chrysler is also looking into further production cuts to keep dealer inventory in check. It's also cutting labor costs by offering buyouts to workers to shed its army of industrial storm troopers by up to 10,000. Times are tough right now in the auto industry, but if you're in the market to buy a new car, 0% appears to be making a comeback [Source...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Plants/Manufacturing , Chrysler , Ford , GM If you're in the market for a Focus sedan, the question is, exactly what kind of Focus will you buy? According to Ford's option sheets, there are 100,000 different combinations you can create. Eighty percent of Focus sedan sales, however, are comprises of just 4,000 of those combos. This glut of choice has increasingly become an issue that translates into lost money, unhappy customers and overwhelmed dealers for the Big Three, and now they're going to trim the options tree. Ford's new marketing chief Jim Farley has said, "Coming from Toyota, I can tell you that the opportunity is there to reduce the complexity of our line-up." Toyota cars are not known for an obscene wealth of choice , although Nissan has found itself with too many choices on the Maxima and Altima, and has cut them down recently. Meanwhile, the domestics are working to figure out how to rationalize the choices they offer -- and...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Ford , Lincoln , Mercury , Earnings/Financials Ford Motor company has bumped the prices of its domestic vehicles by an average of $198 fleet-wide, bringing the overall model year increase to $502 per car, truck, van, and utility vehicle. The only vehicles not effected by the latest increase are the Lincoln Town Car, the E-Series vans, and the soon to be defunct Lincoln Mark LT. While half a grand sounds like a lot of money, it only represents a 1.8-percent increase over last year's overall costs, which is a full percentage point less than the average inflation in the past year. While nobody likes to see prices go up, it's hard to fault Ford for attempting to keep up with the financial times. The big question is whether customers will be willing to pay for the hike in a soft car market, or if Ford will need to put more cash on the hood to move metal. [Source: Automotive News - Sub. Req.] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Filed under: Car Buying Seriously, a survey by Consumer Reports shows 57% of car buyers are very satisfied with the treatment they got at the dealer. Another 31% said they were somewhat satisfied. That means 88% of those surveyed drove away from their car dealer with a smile on their face. If you find that surprising, get this: Of the car buyers surveyed, 96% said they considered the deal they got "fair." If you're wondering how such a high percentage of the public can be so overjoyed with car dealers, the magazine brings up some more interesting statistics that could help explain this. An overwhelming majority (90%) said they found the staff "informed and helpful," which, from our car-shopping experiences leads us to believe the survey respondents themselves could have benefited from some automotive education. Backing up our suspicion, Consumer Reports says from looking at answers to other questions in the survey, car buyers could have saved themselves some money...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Minivans/MPVs , Trucks/Pickups , Marketing/Advertising , Chrysler , Earnings/Financials Chrysler is already offering five-year, interest-free loans on some of its cars. As of today, it is also offering six-year, interest-free...
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