Tacoma sales down: Again?

If something is ‘not a good sign’ for your health, it matters. If something is ‘not a good sign’ for the environment, it matters.

Lower sales numbers means jack shit, as various folks have said now. You’re trying to frame it as ‘not a good sign’ for the Toyota Tacoma, but it seems like what you really mean is they will be less available for future buyers. Which has no effect on the quality or reputation of the truck.

 

It's not good if you are looking for a steady stock of Tacomas sitting on the lot trying to find one at a good price.

Never brought the quality or reputation of the truck into question.

I posted that link to the $41k SR5 with the crinkled seat, because someone didn't believe Toyota would send out a truck that looked like that. Maybe the dealer shouldn't be asking $41k for it? It's a mass produced vehicle, and if there was ten more like it on the lot, with a price tag of $10k less. I think I could easily look past it.

 

I saw a handful of IS 500Fs listed. One had an advertised mark up of I think 10k, maybe it was 20k. I can't imagine what the other dealers were asking.

 

The end result is less people in the market for new vehicles. Which translates into less demand for midsize pickups. Less demand for midsize trucks means there are less people who will buy a Tacoma.

 

Of the two dealers I've worked with a lot, they have both told me that demand is down. The Toyota dealer offered me any incoming SR5 at $1000 off. I asked why the discount and he said, "Toyota gave us a boatload of them, and we'll never sell them all at MSRP." Pretty similar story at the Audi dealership- from a salesman I've worked with for years. Yes, tons of people are still buying cars, but it is starting to slow down and they know it. I'm not arguing the how and why, but there is evidence around here that either supply is increasing, or demand is decreasing, or both.

 

Good. I hope all new car/truck sales are down. People need to quit feeding the "buy at MSRP" credit machine.

 

QC is an interesting thing...

QC guys make sure the parts/assembly meet print, and if they do...they've "passed". From a manufacturer's perspective, that's what QC is.

From the consumer perspective, bad QC is anything that fails or wears out or just doesn't work as it should. Based on the manufacturer's perspective, all of these would have passed QC.

I've been in a company where the QC guy really had never used any of the parts we produced/sold, had no idea how they worked or what make them work better/worse, but he was a "high level QC director". He could measure parts and perform various hardness tests, etc.. and compare to the prints.

What if the print is wrong? The engineer who designed the part may be in the same boat...never having had any experience actually installing or using them and misses the finer points of design that one experienced in the field, rather than just in math and CAD, would not have missed?...those parts all passed QC as well, even though they might not work for shit or last.

There is a whole hell of a lot more than can be blamed on poor design than poor QC, and that is half the fault of the bean counters, the other half the engineers, with plenty of dumbass regulations sprinkled on top that are impossible to comply with while also creating something that works right.

 

but according to a lot of posts in this thread sales were strong which means production was stable which means either the stats are wrong or dealers and auto makers were lying/holding back inventory to fleece the “I want it now” folks

 

Well there is some truth to that. I think automakers have realized they don't need to have car lots filled with trucks in order to make a good profit.

 

Yikes!

 

So did automakers charge dealers a market adjustment fee? I don’t think dealers paid any more for cars than they normally would have

 

Ooh la la! I've been waiting to try that out! Thanks Tacomaworld gods!

 

lots of sr 4x4 here in socal but im a hoodrat that only get access cabs and waiting for a stick shift i just want 3 models 1.trd sport ac 4x4 stick 2. trd of ac 4x4 auto 3. trd of dc 4x4 stick

 

America’s number one truck seller, the Ford F-series is down as well. EVs and Tundra sales are up though. Perhaps it’s just because of the time of year. 2023s are hitting dealerships and there is no special offers to move 2022s in my area.

 

You missed a few things.
Most confuse quality control with quality. Two entirely different things. Manufacturers use QC to make sure everything works and materials engineers select the quality of materials based on the price point to the market.

You are a bit skewed on how the process works internally. Here's how it really works and QC guys and most of our engineers have never used our products.
1. Working with customers, a prototype is imagined.
2. Engineers work with customers to determine design in the Initial Design Review.
3. Designs, drawings and simulations happen.
4. Prototype parts are sourced and developed.
5. R&D assembles and tests.
6. Final Design Review is scheduled including the Customer Rep.
7. Prototype is tested in real world for a long time under extreme conditions.
8 during this time, depending on customer feedback and testing data, production process, procedures (QC processes are developed during this time as well) and component and material spec are finalized.
9. During 1st pilot production run, units that pass QC and test are pulled, disassembled and tested to make sure everything is in spec.
10. Before final production starts, there is a Production Review scheduled with everyone...Customer Rep, Sales, Marketing, OP's, Engineering QC, pretty much everyone. This is an expensive meeting. Everyone reports out and, if everything is good, units go into production.

This is how it works. The "quality" of whatever is being built has nothing to do with Quality Control and everything to do with what the customer wanted and how much he is willing to pay. QC makes sure that the same thing gets built the exact same way using the exact same methods with the exact same components.

So, at the end of the day, the quality of a truck depends on what the consumer is willing to pay. The QC assures that truck is built to spec.

The challenge with something as complex as our trucks is there are a lot of components coming from a lot of different places and sub assemblies are happening with lots of different QC and processes.

 

And the the overwhelming historical trend for Oct to Nov sales is that it trends down more years than up, which would stand to reason that there are other factors in play when it comes to Oct-Nov sales slump...

Could it be people focus on the holidays and pause on the car buying....

I understand that you are trying to say the sky is falling because of a 1500 unit difference but you cannot ignore that the overwhelming trend is that more years than not, Nov sales are lower than Oct...This leads me to believe that the sales are just following the normally established trend.

 

It's lack of demand how many people are looking to get into a new F-150 right now?

There's always somebody who needs a truck, or is going to pay what ever the price is.

I think it was just 6 months ago Ford had 0% APR, or you could custom order a truck with a discount. Lots of Ford buyers who order buy from dealers who offer discounts. Plus Ford has raised MSRP a few times this year. That and the amount of recalls the F-150 has. People are still waiting for their 22s, and people are taking delivery of 23s.

Overall it's the market and the majority of people are not buying new vehicles. Especially if it's truck they don't necessarily need.

One reason I was surprised to see so many Lightnings on the road.

 

I'm looking for a Raptor at msrp or less. Inventory isn't there on F150's in general and Raptors have 15-25k markups depending on dealer and package options.

 

It's Toyotathon for crying out loud.

Sky is falling? That's the people who think sales numbers or how popular their chosen truck is. Has any bearing on quality or any other metric they measure their truck by.

If demand was as strong as people believe there wouldn't be a single unsold truck on any dealers lot. Like it was last year, there are still unsold 2022 TRD Pros available.

Demand is down.

 

I think the demand is still high. It's just that other expenses exist and inflation is higher than ever. Gas prices aren't as cheap as they were either. That takes a few buyers out of the market.