Visitors at the Toyota’s company showroom next to its headquarters in Japan. (Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images)
Associated Press | Toyota sales surged 40 percent in March compared with last year after the automaker offered some of its deepest discounts ever to cope with the fallout of millions of recalls.
The incentives were scheduled to end April 5, but Toyota Group Vice President Bob Carter said some will continue into the spring, including an offer of free maintenance for return Toyota customers.
“When you look at what retail consumers are buying, many more retail consumers are going to be buying Toyotas in the month of March than any other brand,” Carter said in an interview with The Associated Press at the New York International Auto Show, which kicked off with press previews on Wednesday.
Toyota Motor Corp. has been reeling from the recall of more than 8 million vehicles worldwide — including 6 million in the U.S. — over problems with accelerator pedals and braking issues with the Prius hybrid. The automaker rolled out aggressive incentive programs in early March, including 0-percent financing on recalled models, low-priced leasing and the free maintenance offer.
Carter said Toyota dealers have so far repaired about 2 million recalled cars and trucks in the U.S. Dealers are repairing about 50,000 vehicles a day, he said, by adding metal shims to the accelerators and shaving down pedals.
Automakers are scheduled to report March sales on Thursday. Toyota’s sales fell 9 percent in February while the broader industry saw sales climb 13 percent.
Related: Toyota’s accelerator flaws to be examined by NASA engineers (Bloomberg)
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Everyone was to buy a Government Motors car!!
I guess the media’s “ghost in the machine” witch hunt wasn’t terribly effective. Good for Toyota.
The worlds largest auto maker from a country with universal health care. That can’t be right, can it??
Shows you just how many foreigners walk our streets here today.
Gosh, AP, as a Government News Organ you failed miserably in your task of destroying Toyota. Better luck next time.
I guess American car companies failed at what they wanted to do to Toyota. My opinion is that all the accelerator stuff was some kind of propaganda to hurt the world’s largest and best car company’s sales, so Americans could by the American cars because they realized that because of economy, GM wasn’t making enough sales. I mean, didn’t anyone realize that all of that nothing was particularly wrong with Toyota for years and all of a sudden out of nowhere boom, here’s a problem with accelerators…and surprisingly, the incidents only happened in America. Kinda makes me feel sick that I live in such a scandalous country.
Confirms the value of the word of the LSM and the obama admnistration..Absolutely worthless. If obama and his media really wanted to hurt Toyota sales they would report that Toyotas are very safe, cost saving and good for you! Sorta like healthcare reform. The lies coming from this administration, and supported by the media are unprecedented.
GOOD FOR TOYOTA – outside of the glitch with the acceleration, Toyota has had a SOLID reputation and I for one am REALLY GLAD that the SHAMEFUL witch hunt that the media and government instigated FAILED!
Also didn’t help that some real dummies tried to game the system and got CAUGHT!!!!
Again, the story you AREN’T hearing in the mainstream media: A report shows that Toyota had the LEAST amount of complaints from sudden acceleration. GM, Ford & Chrysler all had more complaints about this problem but somehow the media (again) decided not to do their research and went on the witch hunt.
Toyota also comes in the SAFEST vehicle. Guess which three are at the bottom, yep…you’re right.
Until the unions are busted and the car companies aren’t being choked by the unions the imports will always be superior.
Toyotas didn’t change, just the agenda for change made it look like they did.
I don’t want to buy offshore, but when looking for the best long-term bang for the buck, I don’t have any choice.
Besides, the amount of American content and domestic wages in their build, ALL cars seem to have about the same amount, yes, even GM. Check your domestic car’s electrical components, ignition pieces, even suspension parts and you’ll find that a good portion of them are sourced worldwide. Conversely, your import is built in America, with parts sourced from the same areas of the world as the domestics and it’s portered, sold, prepped and serviced here in America.
Get with the program. It ain’t mine, but what choices do you have. It’s a world market and everybody’s buying and selling in it, even my blessed United States of America.
I guess people really ARE letting the recession get to them. I heard suicides are on the rise, but 40% is a shocker.
hughglass: “The lies coming from this administration, and supported by the media are unprecedented.”
Three letters: “WMD”.
The people blasting the Trib here are jackazzes. The Trib reported the story. It was a story. And I’ll bet some of the people here now defending Toyota are some of the same people that were blasting Toyota before. Nice to part of the bandwagon, isn’t it? By the way, for the record, I own a Totota and am verh happy with it. For the jackazz claiming there must be a lot of foreigners, walking the street, I was born and raised in Chicago. The Trib is not to blame. Toyota caught plenty of flak from people that comment in these threads, which were much, much, worse than anything the Trib wrote. But the fact is that whiners make the most noise. Satisfied customers don’t. Apparently there was not much as much American dissatisfaction with Toyota as letters to the editor and comment threads would have us believe.
This just shows you that Toyota makes a much better car than most American car makers. The proof is owning one and seeing for yourself what a quality product is. This whole thing was caused by Government Motors to help them succeed in the future and drum up business, the problem is that we the people never believed the “media”
@ Joe Magartzski yeah I guess so, same with reading this comments, with your Polish last name, unless you’re surname is like Bull or Redfoot then you’re probably a foreigner to this land.
There’s no such thing as bad publicity – just spell my name right.
Hard to believe….a car with a deadly problem…one so tricky they cannot figure it out, and people still buy the product. I guess if you can buy cigarettes you can buy Toyautos.
This proves without a doubt that the buying public has no clue about what to purchase. They purchase with their hearts which is how obama was elected.
Many will be sorry for both.
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