Next Day Traffic

And the February Award for

Outstanding Dealership Website

goes to…

Toyota of Boerne!

Toyota of Boerne is the winner of February’s Outstanding Dealership Website. They say your website is a window into your dealership and Toyota of Boerne clearly sets the tone by the look and feel of their site. A complete video library of all new Toyotas in stock, specials posted from every department, professionally taken staff photos – appears more like a corporate roster than just standard mug shots of employees, special graphics, sales event information, recall updates – they even showcase their in dealership “boutique.” A special congratulations to Toyota of Boerne!

Direct Mail has been referred to in our advertising agency as “the silent killer” and with the results of December and January sales matches coming in, it continues to hold its title.

So what is new in the world of mail?

Variation in the size and content are the two biggest factors as of late:

Be Smart, Spend Less, Go Small – Postcards. Many people rationalize that Postcards are better than letters because they don’t have to get opened. There’s some truth and some false in that statement, but it is all how the piece and offer is positioned. Postcards used to display 4 monthly service offers are

proving very effective. Postcards with a “savings extension notice” or “bad weather delay” are also very effective as a quick attention getter. The CONS of a postcard – don’t try to say too much. Just like a TV spot, you only have a certain time for a certain amount of words. Trying to put too much into one place can make the whole effort not effective.

Go Big or Go Home – Newsletters. Multi-page, combination of sales, service, tips, and timely information can engage readers and further strengthen their loyalty to the dealership. If your brand does not have to separate service from sales advertising you can greatly benefit from using dollars out of each department to combine your message. If you are the guy who has too much news and content to be limited to a Postcard then something BIG can make a BIG impression. You will pay incrementally more for a larger size mailer and it will take more time to put together but your return on investment based off the number of impressions that you make will be greater as well.

One way that a couple of dealerships are finding to cultivate a more engaged following on FACEBOOK is by giving away gifts and services. Everything from “FREE OIL CHANGES” to “FREE TV’s” are being given to followers who participate in contest or games on FACEBOOK.

For all the hundreds of followers/fans that any given store may have, very few become actively engaged in the workings of a dealership unless something is being given away. Be sure as you have a plan for updating New Product Launches, Vehicle Awards, Press Releases and other newsworthy items that you are relevant to your dealership. Be sure to add a little human touch and offer people prizes for being “the first one to call” or the “first to email” an answer to a question or game.

Use your local media contacts for FREE tickets to concerts, games, events, etc. as a promotional tool as well. Let their freebies benefit the store while creating impressions via the social network.

JANUARY U.S. AUTO SALES – JANUARY SAAR IS 10.5 MILLION

Numbers in this table are calculated by Automotive News based on actual monthly sales reported by the manufacturers and may differ from numbers reported elsewhere.
Source: Automotive News Data Center
Note: Other includes estimates for Aston Martin, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Lotus
*Includes Mini and Rolls-Royce
**Includes Maybach, Mercedes-Benz and Smart
***Includes Volvo
****Includes Saab
†Includes Honda Division and Acura
††Includes Hyundai and Kia
‡Includes Nissan Division and Infiniti
‡‡Includes Toyota Division, Lexus and Scion
‡‡‡Includes VW, Audi and Bentley

S

Jesse Snyder

Automotive News

Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc., hobbled by suspended sales on eight recalled models, suffered a 16 percent drop in January demand while most competitors rose from depressed levels of a year ago.

U.S. sales at Toyota Division, which markets each of the recalled models, fell 19 percent. The Lexus luxury division, which wasn’t targeted in the Jan. 21 recall, gained 5 percent.

Sales at Ford Motor Co. jumped 25 percent — the company’s fourth straight monthly increase. General Motors Co. was up 14 percent, while Chrysler Group, the other survivor of a 2009 bankruptcy, fell 8 percent. In unit sales, Chrysler fell behind Nissan North America, which advanced 16 percent. American Honda slipped 5 percent.

Subaru, the only brand with U.S. sales gains in each of the past two years, began 2010 with a 28 percent sales jump.

Shinichi Sasaki, Toyota’s vice president in charge of quality, said today in Japan that the automaker’s sales probably will take a hit. On Jan. 26, Toyota halted U.S. sales of eight models following a recall of 2.3 million vehicles tied to faulty accelerator pedals.

Analysts expected Toyota’s woes to boost sales and market shares for its largest competitors in the United States. GM, Ford, Chrysler Group and Hyundai all launched incentives last week aimed at luring Toyota customers.

Ford said today it didn’t see any change in conquest sales based on the developments at Toyota. “Just a week into this announcement, it’s very hard to predict what’s going to happen,” said George Pipas, Ford’s chief sales analyst.

Beyond January, Toyota’s sales shutdown will have a “significant” impact in the short term, said David Sargeant, vice president of automotive research at J.D. Power & Associates, before today’s results were released. He said Toyota will likely to lose a few percentage points of market share for February.

“The bigger issue is what’s the longer-term impact on their reputation and how that will affect sales going forward,” Sargeant said. “What we know is that Toyota’s sales are very heavily dependent on reputation for quality and safety.”

Yesterday, Toyota said it had found the remedy to fix potentially sticky accelerator pedals in the recalled vehicles, but the company said it is expected to take some time for dealers to complete repairs.

Forecasts

Reuters said analysts and industry executives expect a January selling rate of 10.5 million to 11 million units on a seasonally adjusted annual basis, up from 9.8 million a year earlier. A Bloomberg poll of eight analysts put last month’s SAAR at 10.5 million.

Sales fell below the 10 million-unit annualized rate in January 2009 for the first time in almost 30 years, as unit sales fell 37 percent from 2008 amid a deep economic downturn.

Last month’s totals are expected to be down from the 11.9 million-unit rate of December — when automakers posted a 15 percent sales increase compared with the prior year, supported by year-end incentives that helped retail sales.

A total of 10.4 million light vehicles were sold in the United States last year, down from more than 17 million at the start of the decade.

“There’s no question that the worst is behind us,” Ford’s Pipas said before today’s results were released. “We’re into a period of expansion.

“This is probably not going to be the kind of recovery that is nice and linear,” Pipas added. “We’re going to see fits and starts for the consumer.”

Ford today projected its January market share at 16 percent, in line with the share for all of 2009.

A projected drop in January retail sales is likely to be offset by a strong rebound in fleet demand. Fleet sales were pummeled last year after financing dried up and businesses pulled back on spending in the wake of the U.S. banking bailout.

Reuters contributed to this report

Editor’s note: Earlier versions of this story and the accompanying sales table had incorrect percentage sales declines for Chrysler Group.

Enthusiasts will find plenty to like about the Volt

J J. Scott Applewhite / AP J. Scott Applewhite / AP The Chevy Volt on display at the Washington Auto Show. Chevy says it is gearing up to begin production this spring with mass production by November.

Since its announcement three years ago, the Chevrolet Volt has seemed like one of those perpetually out-of-reach technologies, like fusion power or flying cars.

No longer.

General Motors is gearing up now to manufacture the Volt beginning this spring, reported Tony Posawatz, Chevrolet Volt and global electric vehicle line director.

The company began manufacturing battery packs to go into the cars in recent weeks. The rest of the manufacturing supply chain is coming together so the factory will start assembling cars within a few months, he said. It will begin slowly, making preproduction models that will be evaluated for their quality and provided as test models for journalists and fleet customers through the Summer and Fall.

By November, GM will be ready to switch to high gear and begin mass production of cars for retail sale to regular consumers. Those early cars will be offered only in limited markets which the company feels are prepared to support the special requirements of an electric car, Posawatz said.

So far, California, Michigan and the Washington D.C., area are the only announced markets where the car will be sold, but Volt sales will open up to the rest of the country next year.

In anticipation of the approaching launch of the car, GM provided a hand-built Volt prototype for a test drive around the former American Le Mans Series race track adjacent to Washington’s RFK stadium.

The driver doesn’t wave a magic wand or operate some unfamiliar control device to drive the Volt; there is no steering-by-joystick or other silly interface. The car powers up with the increasingly common keyless “start” button on the dash. A conventional console shifter slides between the common “Park, Reverse, Neutral, Drive, Low” positions, and the “gas” pedal and brake perform their usual functions.

Read the rest of the story here.

By Dan Carney

msnbc.com contributor

A longtime observer of Toyota’s factories contends there’s little evidence that the company’s overall standards are slipping

By Jeffrey Liker

Liker is Professor of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan.

I have been visiting, studying, and analyzing Toyota for 25 years in Japan, the U.S., Europe, and other countries. I have written six books about Toyota (TM) and many articles, and my students have written PhD dissertations about various aspects of the company. One of my PhD students just successfully defended a thesis on how most of the auto manufacturers, including Toyota, work with their suppliers. His data show Toyota is head and shoulders the best customer to work with on the technical details of designing, prototyping, and testing brakes.

Before all of the recent negative news—about unintended acceleration, recalls of millions of vehicles, and a shutdown of U.S. production—I was working on a book extolling the virtues of this great company, which was using the recession to retain employees, not lay them off, and teach them kaizen (the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement).

So what happened that is causing the media to write off 60 years of progress in a company that has become a model of operational excellence? It seems to me that the inferences about Toyota’s quality problems are emotional and have little to do with actual facts.

Those facts are:

—Carpets that are not clipped down, particularly all-weather rubber carpets sold by dealers, can slide around and jam the gas pedal. This can be a problem in every car—that is why they have clips on the driver’s side to hold the carpet in place. If you clip down your carpet, it is perfectly safe. In Toyota’s case, there was one documented car crash killing four people, involving a Lexus that a dealer gave out as a loaner car. The dealer threw in an all-weather carpet without fastening it down. It trapped the pedal. The driver got into an accident and the car caught fire. The rubber mat was fused to the pedal, so it was clear what had happened.

Toyota has an extraordinary response to this incident of carpets, including cutting the size of the gas pedal for existing cars and then designing a software fix that will cause pressure on the brake to override the gas pedal and cut off the gas. It is a sophisticated piece of software that is embedded in a computer chip in the engine and has to be programmed differently for different car models and engines. All that is highly time-consuming, and it will take a while to get it into all Toyota cars.

—Sticky pedals. Apparently this is caused by an interaction between the material of one part of the pedal, as made in one plant by CTS (CTS), an automotive supplier, and humidity and wear of a part over time. It is a metal part called a shift lever. CTS uses a different material than Denso, Toyota’s other supplier of gas pedals. This is a rare problem in terms of number of problems per one million vehicles but Toyota dealers documented cases of sticky pedals. If you push down the brake firmly, the brake will work fine at slowing down and stopping the car. Apparently pedal wear can also cause problems like this in other cars, but Toyota had a series of reported cases by its customers.

Toyota has a replacement pedal in production at CTS already and has suspended U.S. production of eight models until the new pedals are ready. It still needs to find a fix for the millions of cars out on the road. That fix is expected to be days away, not weeks.

These are the two problems that led to the recall of more than 6 million vehicles and the shutdown of some factories. Is it enough to lead some in the media to suggest there’s been a significant change in quality for the whole company? To me that seems like a poor generalization. The design decision on the gas pedal was made five to 10 years ago, working with a supplier, and it passed all of the tests at the time. What does that really have to do with the rest of the company today?

SIGNS OF STRENGTH

I personally have toured Toyota plants and been in their engineering offices in the past year. Unlike many competitors, Toyota had no involuntary layoffs through the recession and had enough extra people during the slowdown to focus intensely on quality and safety. In some plants, 40% of workers who were not needed for production were paid full-time to relearn its famous production system and attack problems in the plant with a vengeance.

In its Georgetown (Ky.) plant alone, Toyota reduced defects found in final inspection by more than 40%, thanks to the ideas of workers on the line. And this plant—which makes the Camry—was already producing some of the best quality in the country. In 2009, 10 of the coveted JD Power initial quality awards for the best vehicles in a segment went to Toyota or its Lexus unit—more than any other automaker.

I come away in awe every time I visit a Toyota facility. It does not do justice to the hundreds of thousands of people in Toyota engineering and manufacturing and the supply base to leap to conclusions based on such thin evidence. Clearly it’s no small thing when a company shutters factories that produce its best-selling products. But it seems to me that the inferences about a wider quality problem at Toyota are not based on actual facts.

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jan2010/db20100128_907800.htm

“We deeply regret the concern that our recalls have caused for our customers and we are doing everything we can — as fast as we can — to make things right,” Toyota Motor Sales President Jim Lentz said in the statement.

A solemn Lentz apologized to customers in a video on Toyota’s Web site: www.youtube.com/user/ToyotaUSA.

www.toyota.com

1-800-331-4331