The Press Gives Toyota a Free Pass

The BBQ Pit
1

I just saw Toyota’s replacement for the Scion xB and it’s even nastier looking in the metal than its “spy shots” in the press and on-line.

They took a quirky, so-homely-it’s-cute, vehicle and turned it into some bizarre mini SUV with windows so tiny that I expected gunports below them and BRINKS on the metal panels replacing the side windows behind the rear doors. Squinty windows on a small vehicle running among giants is unsafe design, IMHO.

My son bought an xB last year and this “Japanese cars are overrated. I’d buy Korean before I’ll buy Japanese” GM/Ford/pre-Daimler Chrysler fan actually saw a Toyota he’d want to own.

The outgoing xB reminds me of a little-less-tinny, little-quieter-running version of the old Dodge Omni–a particular favorite vehicle of mine for its light nimbleness and airy big-windowed interior.

In addition to the ugly re-style the new vehicle is substantially heavier and has a much larger engine. And this is the crux of my rant.

If GM radically porked-up and engined-up the Cobalt, or Ford radically porked-up/engined-up the Focus, the American press would be all over them for being out of touch with the realities of $4 gas. Daimler has already taken its lumps for bringing out its porky Caliber as the Neon’s replacement.

But Toyota radically fattens-up a car, puts a larger, thirstier engine in it, gives it a less-practical design , and they get a free pass.

Another related gripe is that Toyota, has a lot of big SUVs in its lineup, Honda too, and yet its always “Detroit builds gas hogs, the Japanese build the economical cars we all really need,” type comments we see in the press.

2

These guys don’t like it.

3

OH SHIT!!! I love my (old-style) xB! How could they do this to the Scion?!? :mad:

FUCKERS. Good thing I was planning to drive mine till it died anyway. :frowning:

4

I feel you my brother , but as some one who works for a Dodge dealer Toyota is giving customers what they want . Good service and nice rides . I’m not sold on thier pickups quite yet but thier cars are the bomb. Shops that I deal with confirm the all around good vehicles they are making. Call me old school but you just can’t beat an american pickup. The big three have been making them for almost a hundred years. I do my part to make sure my customers get treated right and feel good about owning one of the originals. Even though Toyotas are now being made here I don’t think it’s quite the same.One of the guys I work with bought an FJ Cruiser, a revised Landcruiser and he digs it. They only make those in Japan and it is well built and good quality but like like all vehicles , when you are on the inside, you can see some of the smaller flaws. Engineers and design guys just dont see it from the angles that you and I do. One of the fastest vehicles I ever drove was a Landcruiser with a blueprinted small block chevy that i helped install in it. Once we got it to stop blowing up drivetrains it would cross rough desert at 70 miles an hour . What a fuckin’ blast . Hopefully the big three can pull thier heads out of thier asses in time to keep from going tits up.I’ll still keep fixing them either way. :smiley:

5

Those cars are head-turningly ugly. I don’t get the small, ineffective windows in cars, either. When did not wanting to see where you are going or being able to see when you shoulder-check or reverse become a good thing? I traded my old Sundance in for a Corolla last summer, and one of my (very few) complaints about the Corolla is that I can’t see where my trunk is when I’m reversing - my Sundance had unparalleled visibility all around. I could parallel park that puppy in a space a foot longer than the car without ever touching anything around me. One of the reasons we went with the Corolla is that is has the BEST visibility of the modern cars.

Buying Korean reminds me of a funny story from when we bought our Corolla - after a year of research and test-drives, we were trying to buy a Hyundai Elantra, but the dealerships gave us so much run-around and were so shady (they all but told us their ads for prices and financing were lies), we ended up buying a very lightly used Corolla. And we have had nothing but good experiences with the Toyota maintenance shop since.

As for big cars and gas prices, I don’t understand the disconnect, either. I guess people get ideas in their heads and it’s very hard to shake them loose - like the difference between “need” and “want.” I’d like to see some serious dis-incentives for people to continue to buy way more vehicle than they need, but that might be unpopular, and the government who implemented it wouldn’t get re-elected; it’s all a rich tapestry of shittiness.

6

I should certainly hope it wouldn’t get re-elected. This is not-so-stealthy marxism.

7

Around here, theToyota dealer that has sold nothing but Toyotas for more than 20 years is a crappy place to buy a car.

I recently went with a single co-worker to this dealership to help him get his new used Corolla home and the idiots there couldn’t find the keys. Next, after finding the keys , they tried a dozen keyless-entry remotes just thrown into a heap, they finally found one, but not both of my co-worker’s remotes. "Bring the car by later this week and the mechanic’ll reprogram one of these, " the salesman said.

What about the rightful owner of the car THAT remote belongs to? What kind of outfit doesn’t put the remotes to a given car on the same keyring as the keys to that vehicle?

Am I gonna buy a hybrid with all of its complexities from someone who can’t keep keys and remotes straight?

My son’s dealer is a multi-make “superstore” that grew from a Chrysler dealership. Nobody there seems confused and befuddled. Nobody there seems to want to lowball an American trade with all of this “godlike Toyota is doing you a favor to take this inferior junk off your hands” attitude my son got from the Toyota-only place.

8

Damn. Every dealer is different and service like that is what makes or breaks customers. It warms my heart to see another big 3 dealer trying hard to get back what was once only ours. Hybrid technology is not making it in my opinion. Even Chrysler has started using flexfuel embems again in hopes of enticing people to buy. What I’m not sure people realize is that even hybrids use batterys which are next to nuclear waste in being nasty to get rid of. I’m not a scientist but I know that it’s fuel that needs to change if cars are going to survive. Hydrogen is one the most abundant elements in the universe and if fuel could be made from it that would burn in an internal combustion engine it would make the transition a lot smoother than trying to come up with something totally different for transportation. Flex fuel seems kind of weak too. With millions of people starving on this world it seems food could be put to better use. But hey, i’m just a dumb-ass parts guy – what do i know ? :smiley:

9

Not to mention the batteries in hybrids only last a few years (it looks they are warrantied for 8 years), and are thousands of dollars to replace. That’s like buying a car knowing that you will be doing a $3000 complete overhaul of the entire engine in eight years - thanks, but no thanks. On the other hand, if this technology becomes more common, I can see the life of the batteries improving quality-wise and coming down price-wise. It’s not there for me yet, and I imagine a whole lot of people.

I think Canadians should invent our own car, completely shifting the paradigm of how an automobile should be made, what it should be able to do, and making it especially suited for Canadian driving conditions and attitudes. We could call it The Arrow. :smiley:

10

Nah, it’d just get crushed by the government because of the bitching of US car makers. :smiley:

11

Dudes, just avoid the whole misheva, get a diesel and use biodiesel and tell the gas companies to sod off.

12

Well, can’t argue taste, but I think it is a noble evolution of the xB in terms of style. I always felt the xB just looked flimsy and weak, but this new design looks rugged by comparison. Even despite its excellent utility, I can’t help but think that it was perhaps a bit too small for some.

An important thing to note in the car industry these days is: small cars are getting bigger and heavier. With very few exceptions these days, most models are continuing to grow in size and weight both for ride comfort and safety purposes. I have also read more than one report mentioning Toyota’s significant effort to make their high-revving 1.8L engine meet increasingly strict emissions standards, but being unable to because of the engine’s dated design. Their newer engines may be bigger, and perhaps more thirsty, but they apparently run cleaner. I think this new xB is less fuel-efficient not due to the engine, but instead because of the extra weight of the car. It’s clear that their only goal here was to deliver more weight to give the car a more secure feel. I was never a fan of the car to begin with, but it seems like Toyota really missed the mark on this thing in order to save a few beans. They could’ve made it better, but if Toyota’s really what you want, then you’re probably not interested in making a statement. I’ve always thought it a bit lame that Toyota is so pedestrian that they had to create a new brand just to convey personality in their products. Most manufacturers already have some kind of character and don’t need to invent brands to capture attention.

Still, I agree with featherlou’s insightful statement about a disconnect in the market with regard to domestic vs. import brand perception. A product like the Calibre fails where the xB finds success due to many things, but I don’t think utilitarianism is one of them. Not only does Dodge make a pretty pukey interior, but Scion has the reassurance of Toyota technology behind it. Meanwhile, companies like Hyundai are rising through the ranks with incredibly high quality products that are rivalling and even exceeding the quality seen in the Japanese brands … and I say this as someone who never thought such a thing could happen.

13

Toyota already has one classic vehicle with enough character for a century, but not the kind you’re thinking of.

Ask any Land Cruiser owner whether he’d rather have any other vehicle.

The new “FJ Cruiser” is a joke - but among serious off roaders, there is no better vehicle than a Toyota.

14

Few things to note:

Yes, Toyota and Honda are tops in reliability. No doubt. That does not translate to “All Japanese car makers are better than American” as Mitsubishi and Nissan are only OK in reliability. (Oddly, VW and Mercedes are near the bottom)

Next- Toyota dealers in America are- without a doubt- the biggest crooks in the business. Never, ever buy a car from a Toyota dealer- you *will *get ripped off. (You can still buy a new Toyota, just use a Jobber).

And CR recently slammed the Yaris pretty damn hard, even though they generally love Toyota products and they loooove the Honda Fit.

15

True, but as you’re often keen to ignore in automotive discussion, Argent, the tide of the industry has changed despite your fondness and longing for it to indefinitely remain in the state it was in during the gas crisis of the 70’s.

My mother once had a BJ46, and much preferred her Suburban even then. She owns a Highlander now, but she certainly isn’t an off-roader. I’d say a good 99% of Toyota SUV owners don’t ever leave pavement. And with gas prices being what they are these days, I wouldn’t have a hard time imagining more than a few Land Cruiser owners wishing that they did have any other vehicle. The niche of off-roaders that modify Land Cruisers for the kind of off-roading pictured in your linked photo is hardly representative of today’s Land Cruiser buyer.

My comment about Toyota’s struggle to to convey brand personality was aimed at their launch of the Scion brand to a younger demographic (which is what the thread is about), not at their cartoonish resuscitation of the FJ Cruiser. I doubt anyone looking at an xB for fuel efficiency and utilization of interior volume is going to be cross-shopping the FJ or Land Cruiser for off-road rock climbing. Let’s try to stay on point.

FWIW, my father bought a Lexus and the stealership screwed him out of warranty work on, get this, a cabin air filter. Refused to acknowledge the problem or take the steps to fix it, presumably I suppose because Toyotas don’t break and they couldn’t be bothered. Guess what? To send them a message, he told them to fuck themselves, terminated his Lexus lease early and went and got a Buick Lucerne CXS with the Northstar V8. It has personality in spades compared to a Lexus, rides nicer, is more comfortable, has better visibility, and was more car for the money. More importantly, he hasn’t had a single problem with it, and I think it’s nicer than any Lexus save for the LS flaghship.

I had a similar fallout with Honda. Exhaust system on my Civic was the absolute lousiest piece of corroded shit I’ve ever seen … and I bought the car new. Fell off the bottom of the car not once, but twice, and after only 35,000 miles. I did the same thing my dad did and went to Mazda, a worthwhile brand with real personality and heritage whose dealers don’t act like their shit don’t stink, and after 30,000 miles on my Mazda, I haven’t had a single problem. I guess the people in charge of fixing my Honda couldn’t be bothered since their products were delivered on the wings of angels, and to question their divine infallability is to commit an act of sacrilege. I’ve never seen more pompous asshattery than that on display by the clowns at Honda and Toyota dealerships because in my experience, they act like their products are incapable of breaking. I will never own another Honda product again, and my dad will never own another Lexus/Toyota product again. He’d rather put some money in GM’s coffers than feed Toyota & Honda’s narcissism, and I concur. The press gives Toyota and Honda a free pass far more often than they deserve.

16

Off-topic, maybe, but I’ve seen the “this is a waste of corn” argument regarding ethanol in a few places, and there are some things that need to be pointed out:

  1. ethanol is not made from the same corn that is made to produce food. It, like animal feed, is made from corn “not fit for human consumption”, i.e. not raised and processed per strict FDA guidelines for that which can be put into the food supply

  2. yes, there ARE many starving people in the world, but freeing up American land to grow more food crops for them usually isn’t the answer to that. Many famines occur due to food distribution problems, which is why so many have occurred in countries with corrupt and/or heads-up-their-asses regimes. There were reports that internationally-donated foodstuffs intended for afflicted people during the Sahel drought in Africa in the 1970s/80s sat rotting on more than a few docks when no one would or could transport it to those in need. And it was widely reported that relief supplies intended for the 1972 Nicaraguan earthquake victims were being intercepted by lackies of the Somoza regime - this is why Roberto Clemente boarded the relief flight on which he was killed. We can grow all the food we possibly can, but until we get rid of the assholes who don’t care enough about their own people to make sure that food gets to them, it will just go to waste.

  3. Americans probably waste more corn on high-fructose corn syrup than they do on ethanol, and why nobody is seriously complaining about that baffles me (or maybe they are, I don’t know).

Not that ethanol is the end-all be-all alternative fuel. There ARE several problems with it, including:

  1. distribution problems. AFAIK, it cannot be piped at this time as petrol can.
  2. related to that, only a few stations sell it at this point, making it difficult for flex-fuel-vehicle owners to gain much actual independence from fossil fuels
  3. it is not as efficient and inexpensive to make as petrol at this time, and does not get as good gas mileage, thus setting back your wallet more when compared to petrol.

My vote for best alternative car fuel out now? Biodiesel. It is made from food service waste products (mostly things like fry oil, etc.), is biodegradable, can be used in traditional diesel-burning vehicles with no modification, and has developed a cottage industry in some areas with small, locally-owned biodiesel factories practically run out of people’s garages. In addition, it can also be transported and piped as traditional diesel fuel is. It is more popular in Europe than it is in the US, probably due to the larger proportion of European vehicles that run on diesel, but would make for an attractive reason for American drivers to look into diesel vehicles.

17

[QUOTE=Intravenus De Milo]
Off-topic, maybe, but I’ve seen the “this is a waste of corn” argument regarding ethanol in a few places, and there are some things that need to be pointed out:
/QUOTE]

It may be off topic but how is a dumb ass like me going to learn anything unless somebody teaches me. Thanks, my friend.

18

OK, but if we make more ethanol from corn, where is it going to be grown, and what will it supplant? It’s not like available agricultural acreage is expanding.

Nonetheless, corn is a world commodity with a world price. If the same amount of corn is produced, but more of it is not-fit-for-human consumption corn for ethanol, the price of food corn goes up, and becomes less affordable in poor parts of the world, distribution problems or no.

There are legions of people cursing out high-fructose corn syrup for many reasons, from people who attribute America’s obesity problems in part to it, to Coca-Cola purists who think their beverage of choice hasn’t been quite the same since they stopped using sugar as the sweetener.

19

  1. And you forget they can also often use the stems, etc for ethanol.

  2. True. It is 99% a matter of distribution, not quality.

20

Back to the original topic: Yes, toyota makes a LOT of low-MPG vehicles as well. the land Cruser is just as bad as a Ford Expedition, and the big Tundra truck is a gas guzzler. Toyota has a better mix of cars however(than FORD, GM), because it sells a lot of small-engine models. If CAFE is the standard, TOYOTA does pretty well.
Regarding “ultra small” high MPG cars; we could easily make 300 CC engine cars that would give 50+ MPG. These cars would be uncomfortable and light, and very unsafe. What’s the breakdown between safety and gas milegae? Only the consuder knows.