# My next car will be damage control.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-next-car-will-be-damage-control/530837>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [March 1, 2010, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-next-car-will-be-damage-control/530837 "2010-03-01T06:46:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\
**Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-next-car-will-be-damage-control/530837/1 "2010-03-01T06:46:32Z")

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I am just curious. Is Toyota getting the results they want with their newest commercials? Or is it too little too late? I mean, a blind person can see through these ads, right?

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**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\
**Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-next-car-will-be-damage-control/530837/2 "2010-03-01T17:43:41Z")

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I like them. Not too many companies have the audacity to tell people that they’re awesome for finally acknowledging that they’ve screwed up.

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**Author:** ![nivlac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3bc359/32.png) [@nivlac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nivlac)\
**Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-next-car-will-be-damage-control/530837/3 "2010-03-01T18:22:09Z")

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How can the ads hurt? They’re as far down as you can get from a PR perspective. I hope they come back, but it’ll take a while.

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**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\
**Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-next-car-will-be-damage-control/530837/4 "2010-03-01T19:31:47Z")

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I just bought a new Toyota on Saturday. You would never had guessed Toyota was having sales problems. The place was hopping with customers outnumbering salesmen. (These weren’t service problem customers either as the dealer’s service center is in another building down the street.)

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**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\
**Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-next-car-will-be-damage-control/530837/5 "2010-03-01T20:08:48Z")

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I wonder if shoppers now think that Toyota dealers will now be more willing to deal than they have been in the past.

When we’ve shopped for the last two cars for my wife, in both instances, she was interested in a Toyota, but we found the Toyota dealers to be, frankly, condescending. It seemed like they knew that their cars practically sold themselves, due to their popularity and reputation, and, thus, they were _not_ interested in doing any sorts of deals. Our experience was that they pretty much sold their cars at sticker, and low-balled our trade-ins. (Which is, in part, why we wound up with a Subaru, then a Mazda.)

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**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\
**Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-next-car-will-be-damage-control/530837/6 "2010-03-01T20:13:30Z")

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> [@Meeko](#):
>
> I mean, a blind person can see through these ads, right?

Consider me blind, I guess, I’m not sure what I should be “seeing through”. What kind of deception is there I should be detecting, or are you using the “seeing through” phrase in some non-standard way?

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**Author:** ![In\_Winnipeg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a8b319/32.png) [@In\_Winnipeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/In_Winnipeg)\
**Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-next-car-will-be-damage-control/530837/7 "2010-03-01T23:55:58Z")

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Seems to me that if they were really serious, the head of the company would have committed ritual _seppuku_ by now. They have lost much face.