Toyota’s Hao Quoc Tien has a stern warning for those who’re swayed by its cheap competitors: you get your money’s worth. The president of Toyota Motor Asia, who’s very savvy at avoiding direct answers to pointed questions, had a refreshingly direct answer to a very pointed question as to why Toyotas are generally more expensive than its Chinese rivals.
Hao admits that compared to its rivals from mainland China, Toyotas are more expensive. Yet, he believes that they’re priced fairly given that each Toyota has been designed and engineered meticulously from the ground up and baked with three key ingredients: Quality, Dependability, and Reliability. This QDR, a part of the Toyota brand promise, extends to the entire lifecycle of each Toyota, down to its aftersales service, long-term repairability, and resale value (good luck protecting that if continued price wars drop retail prices sometimes at a rate of 30 percent, says Hao).
It even extends to the area of recalls and customer trust. Looking back at safety issues that rocked Toyota subsidiary Daihatsu most recently, Hao reminds that the company opened up and admitted to their lapses quickly. He also added, “We wouldn’t know what other brands would have done.”
It recalls the situation Akio Toyoda faced in 2010 amidst a huge recall of Toyotas that had unintended acceleration issues.
Toyoda said:
We are manufacturers. Our products embody the truth, and they cannot lie. In the case of dealerships, the truth exists in the deals between the customers and the staff. Or in the case of suppliers, the truth lies in their parts and equipment. The product you’re seeing or location you’re in is singular. You must communicate based on the truth you find there.This principle is a fundamental reason why almost 1 out of every 2 Filipinos choose a Toyota, and why Toyota is always proactive when it comes to potential issues they’ve found, and how they can use that to improve their future vehicles moving forward. Everyone understands that no car is perfect, but it emphasizes that communication is so important between the brand and its buyers, and why silence may not be the best treatment.
10 million new customers choose our cars every year. We all strive to build trust so people will buy Toyota or Lexus cars.
Making cars involves many processes, from assembly to welding. A product embodies the trust found in every process that goes into making it. I want everyone to focus on the market and customers to engage in communication based on truth and facts about products.
Toyota QDR for peacefull car ownerships experience, enjoy travelling with out stress, head aches.
ReplyDeleteHybrid and EV batteries and components of Toyota vehicles are so expensive 🤣🤣
DeleteMaybe it's just me, but I've seen several Toyotas that have given their owners headaches (maybe they were horrible at maintaining them, idk).
DeleteIt's the parts availability that really gives assurance. Even then, one person I know said that Toyota told them they had to wait like two months for a specific part they needed - it was something related to their clutch sa Innova nila and I can't remember what part exactly but it was an important part I think. Kahit mga non-casa stores dito (decently sized city) wala daw ng ganun na readily available. So, kahit sa kanila maka experience ka din ng wait times.
Actually china cars will cost buyers more later due to costs of frequent repairs, maintenance, resale value, downtime, add to that a lots of stress and head aches. You see carguide ph wont still not buy a china cars, they know better😆😆😆
ReplyDeleteAs if you can afford a Toyota vehicle when in reality you only drive a rusty 32 year old Mitsubishi L300 FB and a 2nd hand junk 25 year old Suzuki Multicab van
DeleteMaybe you should own a china car first, before u arrive to that conclusion.
DeleteMajority of china car haters doesnt own one. All their comments are baseless and is built on envy and blindness and doesnt even understand how a car works. Or worse, they dont even own a car.
Talaga lang ha nakaka envy ang china cars😂😂😂
DeleteAre you really losing sa resale value when you won a lot sa initial purchase price?
DeleteKahit yung downtime/frequent repairs na sinasabi mo, if totoo then ilang beses na dapat nagkaroon ng Geely-level PR disaster. We'll see when Geely reports sales again but from what I've seen, definitely more of them on the road now.
Also, paki-ayos nga ng English mo, "wont still not buy a china cars" - ang gulo mag interpret kung ano intention mong sabihin. 🤣
Chinese cars are the best if you plan to dispose it after 5 years. You get your money’s worth in using and experiencing the features they offer in those 5 years. After that, just sell it and buy the latest one again. Also, one of the perks of having a Chinese car is you don’t care much if it gets scratched, its basically a toy.
DeleteMost people can’t comprehend this because they can only afford one car, or can only afford the car but cant afford the ownership. To them it makes sense to buy a Toyota(Daihatsu) because of perceived reliability and availability of parts. Its going to run for ten years, but not everyone wants to have a rough ride everyday in a cabin full of plastic and cheap materials.
What is this obsession with resale value? I plan on keeping a car forever and running it until it literally comes apart in my garage.
DeleteYou get what you pay for. For example, most Chinese cars/vehicles are priced in between P1-2 million and they're already plug-in hybrids. Japanese cars/vehicles with these features are priced way higher. My recommendation would be: if you plan on using your car for 5 years, but a Chinese car/vehicle. But I'd you plan to keep it forever, but a Japanese car, particularly a Toyota.
ReplyDeleteThat's good advice, but someone I know who bought a Raize like 2 years ago mentioned to me lately na, ang ganda daw ng value proposition ng Chinese cars kasi daw vast majority ng people ay nagpapalit ng kotse after 5 years. Guy's an accountant for a big firm, so he must have a good idea about people's financial habits.
DeleteBuy china cars plus lots of paracetamol
ReplyDeleteExcept for geely group, byd and others china cars has poor engineering quality
ReplyDeleteGeely and BYD are also quite crappy to be candid
Deleteim not against toyota's price but they got nerves to say about quality after their recalls and fake tests
ReplyDeleteThe issue with talking about quality is that a lot of people think that good quality means zero problems, which is just not achievable (unfortunately, a lot of fan boys still take that all or nothing attitude towards their favorite brand).
DeleteAs long as they can maintain a much lower incidence of recalls and other issues compared to their competition then they are still very much entitled to using that to describe themselves (scandals notwithstanding).
Toyotas are expensive bcoz they owe so much from their suppliers way back 2010.. its the interests that piled up so they have to increase price to cover the interests. Its all business. And the customers take the brunt.
ReplyDeleteSo Toyota themselves are basically saying Chinese cars are shit. Ok. And? The sky is blue, cow goes moo. That much is obvious and to be expected. Chinese cars are designed to be disposable metal junks after a couple of years. Different engineering philosophy.
ReplyDeleteOooh boy. This is gonna shock some people, but in the Philippine bus scene, China buses have had long years of use and thus been vetted and proven to be of good quality when the 1st major scheduled overhaul is done (after 7 years I think). I know it's technically a different segment but it's gonna be a revelation to a lot of people if China cars are gonna follow the same path of proving themselves.
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