GM offers incentive to Toyota, Lexus owners

[Texas Jim]

GM offers incentive to Toyota, Lexus owners From Automotive News :

GM offers incentive to Toyota, Lexus owners

DETROIT -- General Motors Co., seeking to capitalize on the problems plaguing Toyota Motor Corp.'s vehicles, will offer a monthlong incentive to Toyota and Lexus owners.

The move is in response to “thousands” of calls and e-mails to dealers and GM employees from Toyota owners asking for help, GM spokesman Tom Henderson said today.

The incentive, which runs through the end of February, offers Toyota and Lexus owners three options, Henderson said:

1. Those who choose to lease a vehicle may waive three payments for up to a total of $1,000.

2. Qualifying customers who are financing a vehicle purchase can receive 0 percent financing for up to 60 months.

3. Cash buyers can receive $1,000 off their purchase.

The incentive applies to purchases of GMC, Buick, Cadillac and Chevrolet vehicles, Henderson said.

GM intended for its offer to compensate for some of the value Toyota trade-ins have lost as a result of the recall, Hill said.

“When something like this happen … probably the consumers' biggest concern is, ‘What has happened to the value of the used car?'” he said. “In general, when people buy a car, it's, ‘What is the used car worth, and what does the new car cost?'”

Toyota last week recalled 2.3 million vehicles to fix accelerator pedals that could become stuck. That recall number included some 2009-10 Pontiac Vibes, the sibling crossover of the Toyota Matrix. Both were produced in California by a former joint venture between GM and Toyota, New United Motor Manufacturing Inc.

Late yesterday, Toyota said it would suspend sales of vehicles with the affected pedals. That includes the 1,300 Pontiac Vibes left in North America, GM spokesman Alan Adler said today.

Only six Vibes are left in the United States -- the rest are in Canada. And four of the U.S. Vibes are technically sold but still may be on dealers' lots, Adler said.

GM dealers won't sell the two unsold U.S. Vibes, he said.

GM expects Toyota will pay for all recall work, Adler said, but the automaker is waiting for Toyota to give instructions to Buick-GMC dealers for fixing Vibes.

“Ultimately, GM dealers would fix Pontiac vehicles, but it's up to Toyota to provide the remedy,” Adler said today. “The NUMMI plant was a joint venture. However, the design, engineering and manufacturing of the product was Toyota's.”

Once Toyota recommends a solution, Adler said, GM will communicate with Vibe owners.

Toyota spokesman Brian Lyons said he didn't know what Toyota would decide about paying for Vibe work. But he said Toyota views the Vibe recalls as GM's responsibility.

“They sourced the pedal from [supplier] CTS just like we did,” Lyons said.

Toyota also added 2009-2010 Vibes today to its additional recall of vehicles whose floor mats could cause pedals to become stuck. That recall affects 99,293 Vibes in the United States and Canada, Adler said.

Other automakers

It was unclear if any other automakers would follow GM's incentive lead.

Said Ford spokesman Robert Parker: "We have not changed our focus, which is to provide all customers with products they want and value. It is through the strength of our new products -- with leading quality, fuel efficiency, safety, smart design and value -- that we have been and will continue to attract new customers."

Hyundai isn't currently planning an incentive aimed at Toyota, spokesman Chris Hosford said today, but the company is still considering doing so.

“Every day in the car business is new,” Hosford said. “Tomorrow, we could see something that changes the situation.”

Chrysler spokeswoman Kathy Graham said:

"We're not doing anything to target Toyota customers at this time. Our focus has been on getting the word out to consumers that the new company has great vehicles with cool features and making sure we're building our brands and letting customers know. Nothing has changed."

Jamie LaReau and Bradford Wernle contributed to this report

[Bruce Nunnally]

I think this is very timely and on the ball.

[CarlaValentine]

I wonder if GM's involvement with the Vibe has anything to do with why they are the only company that seems to be stepping up here, or if it really was due to the "“thousands” of calls and e-mails to dealers and GM employees from Toyota owners asking for help". I'm not trying to knock GM at all here or anything. I'm just curious. Either way I think it's a good business ploy on their end. Capitalizing on another company's misfortune may be "morally wrong", but when talking about business you have to look out for yourself. This may be a good chance for GM to pull themselves out of the tank.

[Logan]

Nashville's Freeland Chevrolet wasted no time making a TV spot for the "...unsafe Toyotas."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDw0e-YmPmQ

[Bruce Nunnally]

Crest Cadillac here in Plano emailed tonight; interesting 'spin' -- Peace of Mind:

Toyota has recalled 2.3 million of its vehicles for accelerator

pedals that could potentially stick.

CADILLAC PEACE OF MIND PROGRAM

RECEIVE A $1,000 BONUS FOR YOUR TOYOTA OR LEXUS VEHICLE

We are offering a month-long program to Toyota and Lexus owners.

If you own or lease a 1999 or newer Toyota or Lexus vehicle and trade it for any new 2009 or 2010 Cadillac vehicle...

...you will receive an additional $1,000 in Bonus Cash to use toward the purchase of your new Cadillac Vehicle

PLEASE CALL

1-866-697-9185

[Ranger]

If this was GM the media would be all over these "unsafe" cars, but Yota gets praised for caring about their customers.

[Texas Jim]

If this was GM the media would be all over these "unsafe" cars, but Yota gets praised for caring about their customers.

Yeah... I noticed that too.

Most of the media always seems to slant things...They never tell the straight story.

[Bruce Nunnally]

DETROIT (AP) — Toyota said it began shipping gas pedal parts to its dealers Friday for use in fixing the millions of cars and trucks recalled because of accelerators that could become stuck.

Company spokesman Brian Lyons said he did not know when the parts would arrive or how long it would take the automaker to complete repairs on the 4.2 million vehicles worldwide — 2.3 million of them in the U.S. — covered by the recall. He said Toyota has not yet decided whether to repair the accelerators or replace them altogether.

Toyota will release details sometime next week about how it intends to solve the problem, Lyons said.

Read More: http://www.wfaa.com/news/consumer/Toyota-finds-fix-for-gas-pedals-update-due-Friday-83031697.html

[KHE]

If this was GM the media would be all over these "unsafe" cars, but Yota gets praised for caring about their customers.

Isn't that the truth. The news media has had a hard-on for GM ever since GM won their lawsuit against the Dateline show for the '73-'87 Chevy/GMC pickup gas tank incident..

[Cadillac Jim]

For over 30 years I've heard rumors that American cars are shoddy and unreliable, and that everything stops working at 80,000 miles, etc. etc. etc. For the first 10 years I simply ignored it, but what got my goat was an industry rumor about 1980 that GM was about to fold up Pontiac (I know, in 2003 the folded up Oldsmobile, and in 2009 they folded up or sold Pontiac, Saab, Saturn, and Opel, etc. but this was 1980 when all that was unthinkable). Eventually GM bought a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal and other papers that debunked the rumor. I got to thinking, and most of the time I heard that it was from people who had recently bought a new Toyota of one type or another. As recently as 2004 or 2005 I had the non-car-type head of an all-Toyota family ask me smugly is "all that stuff" on my Cadillac still worked at 100,000+ miles, and he was incredulous when I said that indeed it was.

I've been convinced on he basis of this multiple-personal-anecdote basis that much of the anti-US Car FUD is part of the strategic sales spiel by Toyota, although of course others can't be ruled out. I say strategic because as an engineer I moved where I was needed as things changed in the world and I lived all over the continental USA and I heard the same story everywhere. You heard the old, old joke about a guy who complains to a friend that his wife is having an affair, and his friend asks how he knows, and he says "We moved from New York to Los Angeles, and we have the same milkman." And another saying, I believe from Mark Twain, "Sometimes circumstantial evidence can be quite compelling, as when a fish is found in the milk."

The list of car makers that has not gone to their Government or backers does not include Toyota. I read last year that Honda and Toyota had gone to Tokyo for help. Ford has managed to stay away from the Government but I'm sure that they have gone to their credit sources and backers. Due to the basic nature of the car business, e.g. high investment in physical plants with a fixed burn rate and a lot of inertial resistance to making changes, I think that the list of volume carmakers that didn't dip into some pool after September 2008 is zero.

No, I'm not absolutely certain, and the business world is a jungle in which there are no rules, really. Maybe what I believe that I may be seeing is just a coincidence, given the lie because I always knew better than the "conventional wisdom" about American cars vs. imports from personal experience. But, consider this: whatever GM is doing, they are announcing it in press releases, they are looking you in the eye, and saying "This is what we are doing, and why. Enjoy." And, yes, some individual dealers are adding some broken glass into the sand that is rubbed into the wound, and that is unfortunate. But, what goes around comes around.

[Ranger]

And, yes, some individual dealers are adding some broken glass into the sand that is rubbed into the wound, and that is unfortunate. But, what goes around comes around.

Unfortunate for Yota maybe.