Toyota raising prices -- japanese business

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Kidicious
I know the difference between what people say and what they mean.

You always think you do, but you are always wrong.

You think they are going to say they are raising prices to make more money?

Isn't it smarter to drive your competition to the ground so you make even MORE money in the long run?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Compare all Japanese cars to all European cars to American cars and domestics do damn well. It is funny how you pick just the best two Japanese makes and you ignore the other 11 which get their asses handed to them.

Why is that funny? I would never buy a European or an American car, and I'm not defending the European cars either.

In fact I remember saying many derogatory things about Euro cars to Saras(?) after his BMW caught fire.

Secondly you are still full of **** on you baseless claims that "American cars fall apart after their warranty is up". You've been repeatedly pawned on and been shown that it is nothing more then your tackless and baseless opinion. Even Ming laughed his ass off at you.

1) What is "pawned"
2) In what way does your dismissing of Consumer Reports reliability metrics as "unscientific" you winning anything?
3) Ming is a marketing guy, why is he suddenly an expert on the situation?

A satistical approach was taken by J.D. Powers though and surprise, surprise you get pawned again.

You're making a fool of yourself.

JD Powers & Associates is not any more scientific than Consumer Reports' methodology. The difference is JD Powers & Associates only asks about cars under warranty.

I know -- for a fact -- that at the very least GM designs parts so they know they'll work under normal use under warranty, and that's it. I also know for a fact that Toyota has many, many times the quality requirements for the same components. That reflects in post-warranty statistics.

I know this because my brother has worked as a Mechanical Engineer for a few companies: Progressive Moulded Products (airconditioning vents/dashboards in the Pontiac G6 and 2006 Camry), and Multimatic (transmissions and suspensions in CART cars, and various GM and Honda cars). The difference in specs provided by GM and Honda/Toyota are huge.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Isn't it smarter to drive your competition to the ground so you make even MORE money in the long run?

Of course, but the US govt isn't going to let that happen, and Toyota knows it.

[Dinner]

You're right Asher. I do like J. D. Power's and Associates because they are the only ones who are doing real scientific sampling using satistical surveying methods. J.D. Powers doesn't deal in undefined opinions like consumer reports but instead works hard at removing opinions and making rankings based upon mathmatical data such as frequency of repair, cost of repair, type of system which broke, size of body panel gaps, satistical varience between supposedly identical parts, etc...

In short J. D. Powers uses E. W. Demmings methods for statistical quality control in order remove opinion and guess work and replace it with measurable mathmatical numbers which can be independently varified, catagorized, and compared. In short it is the most honest and objective survey out there.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Of course, but the US govt isn't going to let that happen, and Toyota knows it.

So you've admitted that the impetus behind this isn't to make more money... it's to prevent getting too much market share so the US government doesn't bring down the hammer.

Thanks.

[Asher]

Your use of big words and ignoring most of my key points was commendable. I'll dumb it down for you and argue in point-form for your convenience.

1) JD Powers & Associates calls people. Consumer Reports asks readers to send in a postage-paid response. Both are clearly subject to non-response bias (I am actually more likely to send in the CR response because I can do it on my own time -- rather than being asked on the spots ala JD P&A.)
2) JD P & A does not look at real long-term reliability, but only under warranty. My whole claim is that American cars are designed to be reliable under warranty, and that's that. JD P & A does absolutely nothing to refute my point of post-warranty reliability, as their "long term reliability study" occurs while cars are still under warranty.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


So you've admitted that the impetus behind this isn't to make more money... it's to prevent getting too much market share so the US government doesn't bring down the hammer.

Thanks.

Would you like to make a bet as to whether Toyota will make more profit or not?

[Dinner]

You can still get a satistical sampling by calling people (notice that's how all the polling companies do presidential polls) since you are choosing the whos and the wheres so as to prevent over or under representation. By letting people decide if and when they feel like writing you then you are letting them decide. That opens you up to systematic errors in data collection. Get out of your computer nerd classes and take a class on satistics. You'll learn a lot on scientific data collection.

J.D. Powers doesn't look are more then a certain number of years because afer a while how the car is used and how it is cared for matters more then the original design. Satistically it is impossible to say with certainity 5 or 10 years down the road if the car was abused or if it was a design error. J. D. Powers values its good name so it deals exclusivesly with facts they can 100% varify.

[JohnT]

Get out of your computer nerd classes and take a class on satistics.

Oerdin! You can't take that tone while constantly misspelling statistics. It makes you look really, really sad.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Oerdin
You can still get a satistical sampling by calling people (notice that's how all the polling companies do presidential polls)

And there are very simple examples of this failing miserably and being totally off, as well.

Get out of your computer nerd classes and take a class on satistics. You'll learn a lot on scientific data collection.

I've taken both statistics (STATs) classes and quite a few pure math and applied math classes with direct statistical implications (statistics are a huge part of algorithm design, in case you didn't know).

Besides, you don't need to be an expert in statistics to know that you can't refute an argument about post-warranty reliability with statistics from cars under warranty.

[Dinner]

**** spelkling.

(please note that was done on purpose in this post)

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Would you like to make a bet as to whether Toyota will make more profit or not?

Do you actually remember what you said? You said you know the difference between what Toyota said and what they meant. Then you confirmed that Toyota was raising prices to prevent the US from getting all protectionist, which is what they SAID!

No one ever said they weren't going to make profits, they already make a ton.

Besides, they don't just compete against Ford and GM. A higher price means that companies like Mazda are licking their lips.

[Kidlicious]

You aren't making any sense (suprise), and you are saying that I'm saying things that I'm not.

[Odin]

My stepdad scolded me for liking Toyota. I tried to explain to him that those companies have plants in the US, but he doesn't get it.

[Colon™]

Originally posted by DanS
American consumers are being victimized by the Japanese long-term managed capitalism view!

Protectionism and mercantile patriotism is alive and kicking in the US: quotas on Chinese textile imports, the bailout of American airlines, farm subsidies... If Toyota openly runs GM and Ford into the ground there IS a high risk of a backlash.

And tell me, would it the consumer's interests if there is going to be such a backlash? I very much doubt so.

In an ideal world politics and business are separated, this however isn't an ideal world. So, don't blame Toyota, blame the special-interests' groups crowding Washington DC clamoring for protection of one kind or another.